Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: The need for the 2nd amendment

Author:Fredrik Lundh
Posted:5/7/1999; 6:22:55 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 5/4/99
Msg #:5775 (In response to 5774)
Prev/Next:5774 / 5776

Any force considering attacking them would have to think long and hard about the high cost involved in terms of men lost and time spent.

at least that was the theory.

fwiw, the same thing applies to Sweden (I'm a trained soldier, as are most others in my generation), but we seem to be slowly drifting away from that entire concept. to the extent we ever believed in it -- I don't think anyone ever thought that it was the Swedish army in itself that kept us outside the WW2, and during the cold war, the goal was pretty much to be strong enough to stay alive until NATO forces arrived...

wars aren't what they used to be -- today, I don't think we would be able to cope with a massive NATO bomb campaign any better than the serbs, for instance.

in addition, a high european NATO official recently pointed out that the US spends nearly four times more money on weapons research than all european countries combined. we simply cannot keep up, and I find that a bit worrying in several ways.

(as an aside, the US defense budget is some 20% bigger than Sweden's GNP. you do have a lot of money to spend over there ;-)

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