Hi David. > Terrence Fugate wrote: > >>> Re: "Arguably, if the Federation had a had a smaller military in the >>> first place, the System States War, as a whole, would have been >>> comparably less destructive (and the Federation's fiscal position >>> likely would have been stronger going into the War, absent all that >>> "unnecessary" spending on the military -- perhaps strong enough even >>> to have avoided the War entirely using "butter" instead of "guns")." >> >> But, with a smaller military the Federation might not have been able >> to prevent succession. > > Or the Federation military might have had the same problems as the late Soviet military. Incompetence. Corruption. I would imagine that was definitely part of the rationale being offered by those Alliance leaders who wanted to "fight" to those who might have been worried about the potential for the sort of devastation the Federation ultimately visited upon Ashmodai, Belphegor and Baphment. Many of those same folks likely also spent a fair amount of effort making the case to their Alliance comrades that the Federation government had become "unworkable." Cheers, David -- "There had been the time he'd mentioned the secession of Canada from the British Commonwealth. . . ." - H. Beam Piper, "The Edge of the Knife"
