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Our Defense Needs in the 1990s |
| Section: CURRENT ISSUES / SPECIAL REPORT--AMERICA'S DEFENSE: HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH NOW? |
| Author: Ken Adelman |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 4/1/1990 |
| Size: 3,541 Words, 21,032 Characters |
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The twentieth century enters its final decade much as it entered its first decade. The fashionable view then held that "modern conditions" of communications, dialogue, and respect for law had made large-scale war forevermore obsolete. This view was nicely summarized by a young Winston Churchill:
“War is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of in the Twentieth Century….Civilization has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, liberal principles…have rendered such nightmares impossible.”
After presenting this position, Churchill asked pointedly: "Are you quite sure? It would be a pity to be wrong."
It was a pity, as the wholesale carnage of World Wars I and II lay ahead. With the same...
. . .
... the "red button" of retaliation.
Maybe such threats are improbable. But then again, all threats seem improbable until they occur, when they then seem to have been inevitable.
Well managed, the current effort to reduce defense and change priorities can leave the nation secure with less. If so, we can then echo Hotspur: "Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety."
(818 of 21,032 characters)
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