2026-09-15
Update
- AFAIK this was one of the main talking points of the anti-Federalists in the 18th century, before the Federalist Papers got signed.
- See also: Wikipedia: Anti-Federalists
- In theory, you can have a national government (like the Federalists wanted) and yet have no single national military (like the anti-Federalists wanted). Ofcourse, in politics, theory means nothing and practice means everything. I can see why creating a national government creates political pressure to also eventually create a national military.
2026-09-10
Maybe a group of militias should be used, not one single military and federal police
Disclaimer
- Thinking aloud, may not endorse after a lot of thought
- Contains politically sensitive info
Main
- Current system is typically the public supposedly agrees to social contract to having a monopoly of violence. They then have courts and police to decide on their behalf who to be violent against within their borders, and intelligence agencies and military to decide on their behalf who to be violent against beyond their borders.
- A major reason the executive branches and intelligence agencies become unaccountable to the public is because decision-making over violence had to be centralised in the first place.
- Side Note - Fact - Approx half of dictatorships were created because of military coups. Militaries' inherent centralisation of decision-making at the top is a major problem.
- What if you instead had a lot of private militias acting together, not one single military? So if the country as a whole has to go to war they need to get consent of atleast a majority of all these private militias. If they have to imprison someone within their borders, they have to send one militia after that person, and they have to rotate duties between the militias, as opposed to always using the same milita.
- Supposedly a single military should be more well-coordinated, but I am not convinced actually. Having more decision-makers running more militia could actually lead to more innovation. (This is a sort of parallel argument to centrally planned economy versus free market.)
- A major problem with current militias in the US is that most of them are kind of useless, they are not directly involved in any day-to-day work of war or policing.
- A fact about the current defence contractor model in the US is that none of the defence contractors can take independent decisions about who to go to war with. In my proposed model, they do have actual decision-making power over this. They can coordinate or diverge.
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