Ok Gentlemen, let it be a given that right now in 2010, it is nigh impossible to conceive of a day we might have to take on Russian planes in a life or death struggle.

Now consider this:
God forbid that would ever happen.
The world has changed so much in the past 50-80 years, its hard to comprehend it its enormity in retrospect. I remember the cold war, when North America was at Def-con4; And bombers rose to the skies from coast to cost on both sides of the world.

And today we sit post-Soviet era with relatively little anxiety compared to those days. Who knows the future? Who knows, if the entire Western economy is going to collapse as it did in the Soviet Union--precipitating the dissolution of that empire?

I can tell you, no one in 1964, 1969, 1973, could imagine that the Soviet empire would collapse as it has. No one would imagine that we are building bridges together with them. Its the problem of the unimaginable that calls a country to build a military force.

I can't imagine being drawn into another gulf war. It would take something like a nuke going off in an American city. How long would it take for NATO to be in Iran if that were the case? If New York were nuked with a strong NW flow, we would be effected, if Chicago did likewise. God forbid that any of these scenarios occur.

One of the most peaceful countries in the world: Switzerland, has universal compulsory conscription of all citizens. And everyone who has done their service has a gun in their home. It is deep in the National psyche, the concept of the defense of the homeland.
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