PS DefenSe in the us.
funny how the israeli military is called a “defense force”. haven’t been doing much defending.
Old joke from when I was in engineering college.
What’s the difference between a electrical engineer and a civil engineer?
One builds the bombs one builds the targets.
The attack industry
Well I mean yeah. “Defense” just sounds better on TV.
Defense does also do defense in a lot of cases
Regardless of what you call it, making the production of weapons an ‘industry’ is psychotic.
let’s look at how well it worked out when a country turned over it’s nuclear weapons and relied on treaties to keep it safe.
It’s a fairly recent development. It was created as the department of war by Washington and remained that until 1947 where it split into the departments of the air force and army, joining the already existing department of the navy, which together made up the national military establishment (NME), which was renamed 2 years later to the DOD.
Oddly enough, this also coincides with the time when the US military was more explicitly about offence rather than defense. After the Revolution, people mistrusted the federal government having a large standing army. The army was raised up in time of war, and everyone went home when it was over.
Post-WW2 was the first time the US kept a large army in “peace”. Been that way ever since.
“Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”
- President Muffley, in Dr Strangelove
- Military-industrial complex
- War machine
- Merchants of death
There are many names.
A way of keeping people employed usefully in many highly skilled jobs so you don’t need to give them social security payouts for being jobless. In this way it is a truly excellent idea.
The US used to have the Department of War. Then it split up after WWII into the departments of the army, navy, air force and the overseeing department was renamed the department of defense. Probably a branding thing.
edit: a word
100% branding. Cant go around admitting to attack and start wars. Its defense, guys. On other countries soil. Right?
“The Ministry of Peace”
-Orwell
Please respect and enjoy the peace ☮️
- Emperor Cleon, who ended the galactic wars
WWII was the war to end all wars, so we couldn’t have a department of war anymore. Still “needed” and army , navy, marines and all the weapons for them though so we created the department of defense.
For countries like Finland, the Ministry of Defense is not about offense, and is very heavily armed.
I’ve always heard to it referred to as the “military industrial complex”. Eisenhower tried to warn us about it in the 1950s.
Smedley Butler was warning us in 1935. War is a Racket .
They also cause Famines, Plagues, and Pestilence. They have whole departments devoted to nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
They’re not a one trick pony.
