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Originally Posted by aliali
Armed is one thing, but an arms race is another. If everyone feels they need to be as armed or more armed than their neighbor, are we any safer? In every circumstance? Being armed kept the Soviet Union out of an all out invasion (which would not have happened anyway), but bankrupted the country and led to its demise.
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What bankrupted the Soviet Union was more than simply military spending. It was military spending coupled with a refusal to see the reality of their manufacturing capacity regarding goods that the people demanded. It's the old guns versus butter thing. If you spend too much on guns, you don't have enough butter, so you starve (or wage aggressive war to steal other people's cheese). If you don't spend enough on guns, you have lots of butter, but are easy pickings for those who overspent on guns and are looking for food. The prudent path is the middle. Some guns, some butter, rather than all or nothing.
Personally, I settle for the ability to kill anybody within, say, 500 yards of my house/person. Anything over that would be overkill. I don't need missiles or artillery (though I have at times had artillery, but that was for fun, not defense.) If it's not really necessary for defense, and you're starving, make butter, by all means. But if you're not starving, better keep making guns too.