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From: josh@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: (micromotives & macrobehavior)
Message-ID: <3677@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 23:39:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3677
Posted: Mon Sep 16 23:39:01 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 02:13:29 EDT
Reply-To: josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall)
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 39

In article <715@psivax.UUCP> friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>... Think about it, a large, rich area with *no* central
>government, *no* organized, systematic defense facilities, just a
>series of seperate militias and privately owned armies(sort of like
>Lebanon).

How about "sort of like the Pentagon"?  Check out Luttwak, "The Pentagon
and the Art of War", for an insight into just how fragmented and at odds 
with itself that unwieldy bureaucracy really is.   But this is a minor point:

> Now here comes a large army pouring over the borders from
>next door.

Which one, the glorious forces of Canadian hegemony, or the invincible
fury of the Mexican War Machine?

> Just what market forces are going to recruit, train, equip,
>and organize an effective resistance force before the country is
>essentiallty completely overrun? Under these cicumstances it is
>*preparedness*, not size and wealth that determine victory.
>				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

Neither market nor government can "recruit, train, equip,
and organize" an army (or a set of retaliatory nuclear missles)
while an invasion is in progress.  You've assumed your conclusion,
namely that the market would be unprepared.  

Let's consider the Blitzkreig invasion of France in WWII.  France
was *not* unprepared; she had spent enormous sums on the Maginot
Line.  The French had put all their eggs in one basket.  A market
for defense would not do that:  it would have the country under
a wide variety of schemes, some of which might work.  I'd personally
favor an assassination defense:  permeate the other country with agents 
and assassinate its political leaders, instead of slaughtering thousands
of luckless doughfoots, who were probably drafted anyway.  Anyway,
you can come up with your own scheme--and sell it *concurrently*
with mine.

--JoSH