Excellent article. I don't know if democratic societies will ever learn how to get out of the yo-yo of "win wars, relax, demilitarise, scramble, fight for survival, win, repeat". Or, even more to the point, recognise a near emergency and ramp up faster - as Europe doesn't do today, when it should.
Yet another top quality argument. I see that Lord Dannatt was doing the rounds with the newspapers again last weekend reminding the public of just this. As Justin has noted below it seems that the cycle still revolves in the same way and that lessons from history continue to be ignored.
Excellent article. I don't know if democratic societies will ever learn how to get out of the yo-yo of "win wars, relax, demilitarise, scramble, fight for survival, win, repeat". Or, even more to the point, recognise a near emergency and ramp up faster - as Europe doesn't do today, when it should.
Thank you for the nice comparison.
Yet another top quality argument. I see that Lord Dannatt was doing the rounds with the newspapers again last weekend reminding the public of just this. As Justin has noted below it seems that the cycle still revolves in the same way and that lessons from history continue to be ignored.
Some fair points but I'm not sure Syngman Rhee's government in Seoul can accurately be described as "democratic"!