Well, if the US govt did what the founding fathers intended, taxes would mainly be going to finance a justice system and a defense system. If that was all they did, and our taxes were well under 10% instead of WELL over 50% (see hidden taxes too), our economy would be many factors richer. 5-10% of a ‘many factors richer’ economy would be a nice revenue for national defense. Also, w/i that richer economy there would exist a more advanced technology and more educated citizen, all contributing to the defense against nuclear attack.
Here’s how I tend to see the nuclear situation.
We were finally able to harness the awesome power of the atom roughly 60-70 years ago. At that point, we had discovered the maximum necesssary explosive power to destroy our enemies. Once you’ve invented a weapon that can destory the world many times over, it’s to no avail that other sources of explosive power be explored. Before this point in time, the race toward greater arms generally meant going from spear throwing to bows and arrows. It meant going from bows and arrows to cross bows. Man’s progression into the truly rigorous scientific age quickly thrusted this arms race to the unsurmountable nuclear age. (I’m basically addressing arms and defense in the sense of brute force)
Once you’ve discovered maximum brute force, where do you go from there? You could concentrate on being faster on the draw and hitting your foe’s nuclear missles before they can fire a shot. You can pursue missle defense, which seeks to knock the foe’s ‘already fired’ nukes out of the sky. You could try to convert your foes to friends and hope the retention rate of those conversions is roughly 100%.
Unfortunately, since the invention of nuclear power/weaponry, there has been no significant counter. When there is potential power, it is better that the entity possessing such power tend more toward liberty. It is better for you and I if we find ourselves subjugated to the more liberal entity. This more liberal entity, as well as less liberal entities, survey all other nuclear powers or potential nuclear powers. They assess the character of the nuclear-possessing entities. The less libertarian they tend to be, the more suspect they become. In other words, a gun in the hands of someone that beats his wife and kids is in all likelihood to be more feared than one in the hands of someone that loves his wife and kids (or at least doesnt beat them nearly as much. lol)
Now that the threshold of ‘maximum necessary power’ has been unveiled by science, do we continue advancing defensive measures (anti-missles, cyber, psychology, conversions, etc)? Do we try to thwart our foes’ attempts at gaining that same nuclear capability? In the pursuit of any of these courses, you come against opposition. For the most part, if you tend to be the more libertarian entity, your opposition comes from an entity that not only frets over self-preservation, but frets over a more libertarian entity’s libertarian tendencies prevailing. Evil doesn’t want good to prevail.
In the interim of nuclear discovery, the US has not made significant gains in it’s counters to nuclear power. As such, it is attempting to hinder non-nuclear nations from advancing to the point the US advanced to 60-70 yrs ago. As time passes, it becomes more and more difficult to suppress such an advancement and the suppression there of requires greater and greater entangling alliances and sordid affairs. In the midst of coercive actions, other techniques are employed, such as propaganda. As the alternatives to coercion prove unsuccessful, partially exacerbated by coercion itself and the critics of such coercive measures (esp. useful idiots), the U.S. must employ more coercion. As coercion escalates, the US diminishes the grayness of it’s foreign relations and enhances the hues of black and white, friend and foe, ally and enemy, good and evil. This delineation moralizes it actions, making them just.
I see this vicious cycle, unfortunately, reaching what many will conclude is a peaceful end, but this so-called peace will most likely be the beginning of the end. Eventually, the ‘problem of nuclear power’ will be addressed by bundling competing interests into a single, governing body. This body will consist of representatives especially from and most likely, exclusively from, nuclear power nations. Each representative will jointly own, with all the other representatives, the entire nuclear stockpile or the control thereof. They will employ a system that requires unanimous consent before missles can be launched. This in essence means, they want be used. Who is there to use them against. This will be made possible by the use of computers. Each nation would have to enter it’s own password before the next nation’s password could be entered. Or, it could even be done in a more hands-on way or a mechanical way, if the nations don’t trust the technology. However it comes about, there will be a joint, international administrative body that will oversee the use of nuclear weapons. This abdication of national defense to international committee will mean a centralization of power and and this absolutist entity will indeed be corrupted - and corrupted absolutely.
So, I think that whenever you hear that the nuclear problem has been solved by the conjoining of libertarian realms and oppressive realms into a single, administrating body, you are hearing about the last days, you are hearing about the sovereignty of good being being engulfed by the insatiable appetite of evil. You will be hearing about the final judgement of mankind.