[Danzig]

as you can see, our government became this bloated thing because of those two wars. something i've said previously. we decided to become a permanent superpower, and it's costing us tremendously. thing is, there was already fear of us before ww1-without us having a huge standing army and massive navy. germany was worried about us entering the war, which was why they kept backing off regarding attacking shipping. but they thought they had their enemies close enough to defeat that they ended up threatening shipping once more that last year before we entered the war. they thought they were close enough to victory that we couldn't ramp up recruitment and war production quickly enough by then to make a difference. oops. of course we managed to do just that, and the rest is history. we did the same with ww2-we had a larger defense, but nothing like what we achieved during ww2. that's where our strength lies-but our leaders didn't pay attention to history. so we have this hufe permanent fixture, and there really isn't a need-is there? it's kept other countries from fooling with us-but hell, as huge as england was, and as loaded militarily, she didn't want to fight us in 1812. didn't want to get involved in the civil war..because they knew it was a losing proposition. but we still spend as tho we have armed forces at every border just waiting to invade. it's ridiculous.