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....uhhh right, Jefferson didn't know jack about history.... good one....

...ever hear about the khans? they didn't have a standing army but were just a bunch of bad assess and conquered territories that made the Romans wish they had yurts.....in fact the Mongols had conquered more territory than any other conquest in history....

Every male of the Mongols was a soldier armed and horsed, inured to marching and battle.

The military of Switzerland, officially known as the Swiss Armed Forces, is a unique institution somewhere between a militia and a regular army. It is equipped with mostly modern, sophisticated, and well-maintained weapons systems and equipment.

If a society falls it has to do with social problems and nothing to do with the army.

Iran came to us, via the Swiss as usual (b/c we don't have diplomatic relations w/ Iran) after we invaded Iraq. they wanted to talk turkey (pun not intended). We said, no freakin' way, we're on top of the world right now.

There is a middle way here, that could allow one without the other.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

In the penultimate draft of the address, Eisenhower initially used the term military-industrial-congressional complex, and thus indicated the essential role that the United States Congress plays in the propagation of the military industry. But, it is said, that the president chose to strike the word congressional in order to placate members of the legislative branch of the federal government. The actual authors of the term were Eisenhower's speech-writers Ralph Williams and Malcolm Moos.

Attempts to conceptualize something similar to a modern "military-industrial complex" existed before Eisenhower's address. In 1956, sociologist C. Wright Mills had claimed in his book The Power Elite that a class of military, business, and political leaders, driven by mutual interests, were the real leaders of the state, and were effectively beyond democratic control.

Vietnam War-era activists, such as Seymour Melman, referred frequently to the concept. In the late 1990s James Kurth asserted, "y the mid-1980s the term had largely fallen out of public discussion... whatever the power of arguments about the influence of the military-industrial complex on weapons procurement during the Cold War, they are much less relevant to the current era."

Contemporary students and critics of alleged American militarism continue to refer to and employ the term, however. For example, historian Chalmers Johnson uses words from the second, third, and fourth paragraphs quoted above from Eisenhower's address as an epigraph to Chapter Two ("The Roots of American Militarism") of a recent volume[3] on this subject. Peter W. Singer's book concerning private military companies illustrates contemporary ways in which industry, particularly an information-based one, still interacts with the U.S. Government and the Pentagon.

The expressions permanent war economy and war corporatism are related concepts that have also been used in association with this term.

The term is also used to describe comparable collusion in other political entities such as the German Empire (prior to and through the first world war), Britain, France and (post-Soviet) Russia.

Noam Chomsky has suggested that "military-industrial complex" is a misnomer because (as he considers it) the phenomenon in question "is not specifically military.". He claims, "There is no military-industrial complex: it's just the industrial system operating under one or another pretext (defense was a pretext for a long time)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex

^^^ so if i may put this into cliff notes.... we're screwed....?

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

- William Jefferson Clinton

Control of the armed services for the USA, Britain and the other European countries should be handed over to the United Nations. These forces could then be used in a way which most people would support, to defend those who need defending around the world. If we were attacked, the UN could defend us.