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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   38771 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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Well, most specifically, the Founders weren't crazy pacifists but I think they truly intended that national armies were indeed for defense purposes only (and indeed the earlier Articles of Confederation basically doomed any national army to near nonexistence in the first place). It's called the Department of Defense because that's what the Constitution talks about as a core governmental responsibility: common defense. And it was consolidated into one because combined arms warfare made separate organizations a bad idea. Arguably, you could have continued to call it the Department of War, but not only would that have led to even more inter-service rivalries and made existing turf-wars worse, but it still wouldn't fit the constitutional background. Defense is the logical name for the department.

That background is traditionally that the government should only be worried about defense of its people. This whole global policeman thing is a post-WW2 invention. Honestly, I think it's been net positive for both the US and the world, despite having shaky philosophical foundations, so I support it on pragmatic grounds alone.

To my eyes, despite being abject policy failures, at the very least the War on Terror put other powers on serious notice that a) messing with the US would bring about world-changing consequences and b) actually did, eventually, curb terror attacks on the US (took a while and a ton of personal freedoms but that's another discussion). So I think in terms of Ferguson it counts, absolutely.

I'm going to bring up my specific pet example:

  • The US is on the brink of war over Taiwan with China.
  • If we fight, the US will lose.
  • Declines in US military spending and/or spending effectiveness are directly connected to this theoretical but impending loss
  • If we had not suffered such a decline, China would not feel as confident invading Taiwan

So personally I think we really can boil down defense spending into two choices:

  1. Boost it again by a lot to try and regain the global policeman role we have started to lose
  2. Give up on the current world order and find space as a more 'normal' superpower

I can see plausible arguments for either option. A middle option is the worst option. Rare for a super-moderate like me.

It's called the Department of Defense because that's what the Constitution talks about as a core governmental responsibility: common defense.

It wasn't called the Department of Defense until post WW2 reorganization. Before that it was the War Department.

I’m aware and specifically mentioned this. But the word is more than just semantic PR, it has a pedigree.

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