Hamilton continues his series of responses to Anti-Federalist fears of a standing army by remarking, in Federalist No. 25, that those who wish to hamper the power of the government to raise an army “in time of peace” would produce “the most extraordinary spectacle, which the world has yet seen—that of a nation incapacitated by its constitution to prepare for defence, before it was actually invaded.” The country will need an army when the enemy strikes, not weeks or months later when such an army can be raised.
What about the citizen militia (think of the fabled Minutemen)? Can those troops meet the enemy while the government gets its act together and raises an army in wartime? Hamilton, the former aide-de-camp to General Washington, remembers the recent war too well not to recall what a constant frustration his commander experienced with the militia units’ short enlistments, poor training and discipline, and indifferent equipment:
“Here I expect we shall be told, that the Militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defence. This doctrine in substance had like to have lost us our independence. . . . The steady operations of war against a regular and disciplined army, can only be successfully conducted by a force of the same kind.”
You get the feeling Hamilton would not be that big a fan of Mel Gibson’s The Patriot, which culminates with militia units turning the tide of a critical battle. Of course today’s National Guard is not the militia of two centuries ago. But Hamilton’s larger point is that regular armies must never be permitted to fall below the size and readiness needed to defend the country against a determined enemy when attacked. Someone might have said this to the Clinton administration. Some people did. In the latest NR, former Senator Jim Talent continues the Hamiltonian tradition by calling for “More” for the U.S. military (behind the subscriber firewall).
(For explanation of this recurring feature, see here.)