A militia is good and all but...

An article proposing that, in the new world of terrorism, a democratic militia would prove much more useful than old central-government-type armed forces. It's a patriotic little piece, which I like (patriotic), but then it goes further to question whether such armed forces are even necessary in such a world (after all, they didn't stop the terrorist attacks)... and that's when the my ears perked up. .

My thesis, in response to this article, would be that this "democratic militia," which Ms. Scarry refers to in such positive tones, has only, and can only work under the circumstances that such terrorist attacks entail. It would be suicide for a nation to believe that these circumstances apply generally, and it wouldn't be cost effective to align our national forces towards these circumstances.

It is true, that "to date, this egalitarian model of defense is the only one that has worked against aerial terrorism on American soil," for Sept. 11 and Dec. 22, 2001, but Ms. Scarry herself limits the scenario of these terrorists attacks to an "aerial" situation using as justification two examples. It is ludicrious to use, as justification for the disbandment of a centralized defense, two constrained examples that occur in the span of one year. Terrorists do not only attack using airplanes. They can also attack using suicide bombers as well as other methods. The results of a citizenry in stopping suicide bombers would be approximately equal to soldiers stopping a suicide bomber: a lot of dead people. Except well trained soldiers have a better chance of stopping a bomber at a distance, than citizenry.

In addition to this, there is an entire section of the article devoted to Flight 93, and the collective actions that they took, which is used to justify how the current strategic thinking of "speed" in any conflict today is unimportant. On the contrary, I would argue that it is still entirely relevant. How many airplanes crashed into the world trade center before the citizenry reacted? While the citizenry did realize the gravity of the situation, and appropriately responded -- the pentagon had responded as well. They had sent jets up with orders to shoot down passenger planes. The emphasis on the timing which the citizenry reacted is inappropriate; it seems that the ulterior motive of Ms. Scarry is to criticize the the centralization of power by pointing out to their results: The pentagon would have sent a passenger plane down in flames, while the reaction of the citizenry had at least the possiblity that the plane might be saved. It seems that both types of armed response, centralized and democratic, occurred within a reasonable time frame. The novelty of the attack also probably contributed to the slowness of the Pentagon in formulating a response; if those had been nuclear missiles from Russia, our response would have been swift and assured.

I will focus now on what I believe is the main weakness of a democratic response. Consider for now, what would have happened, if those passengers had taken a vote, and decided on majority rule to not rush the terrorists?

The constitution is an excellent document, because it not only allows for the decentralization of power, but also because it requires it where it is most needed. The majority vote issue, that underlies what occured on flight 93, but doesn't appear in Ms. Scarry's article, is precisely the reason for a strong federal government in charge of the armed forces. The constitution was written because the Articles of Confederation were too loose: each state retained too much individual power; consequently, against an intelligent aggressor with a strategy of attacking individual states, the other states would not be required, nor would they have the incentives to support the individual. Once the individual fell, the aggressor could then embark on his next victim. In short, the centralization of the armed forces contractually forces collective defense for all states, instead of leaving states to individually fend for themselves.

This model is weak when applied to terrorist groups, because they are small and have no definite "nation," but history has a precedent. Terrorists actually resemble vikings during the feudal period. During that time, it was actually easier for individual nobles to defend his own fief from random raids, than a king with an army. But, as the technology changed, vikings became obsolete, fiefs consolidated into nations, and national standing armies were created. Vikings lacked the infrastructure to do any real damage, and it quickly became apparent that only nation states, with their armies, were dangerous.

What this means is that centralized forces evolved as an evolutionarily superior method to defeat and protect against nations and non-nations, i.e unorganized barbarians.

The existence of terrorist groups does not mean that the strategic climate of the world has changed. Nations still exist, and until they become the minority, and terrorist groups the majority (doubtful because in order to be effective, terroristst require infrastructure, making them easy targets for a standing army) the only appropriate way to deter these types of aggressors would be a centralized defense. Making national defense a democratic process carries with it a danger that your fellow citizen can chose to not defend you.