:lol: nearly every other country in the
entire world has been able to repel invasions with a
1000x less military budget than the US. The
efficiency of a govt in managing its country's physical security is gauged by what it can accomplish
per dollar spent.
So after spending $10 trillion on "defense", being able to deter invasions is nothing to scream about. But since the US govt, after spending approximately that amount since 1980, cannot even stop a bunch of flight school flunkies from piloting a commercial airliner into a major, large financial building (i. e. by scrambling fighters in time, by heeding 75+ warnings of the attacks beforehand), there's no nice way to say it: when it comes to defense, it
sucks.
What happened in the Civil Wars days is irrelevant because we don't live in that world anymore.
What's relevant is the
21st Century world, where, after 9/11, the US spent nearly 10 years and another trillion dollars or so in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat a Third World organization--the Taliban. When
any institution, army, etc., after spending a
trillion dollars,
cannot defeat such a primitive fighting force--one with a 100,000x smaller military budget--it
sucks, period.
In the end, it's very simple:
people's money should not be wasted on institutions that have a track record of using that money inefficiency. And on that criteria, the US govt is (as described above)
second to none.
Great
!
Sure sounds alot better than Uncle Sam's deal: "if you want us to protect you, you have to pay us
$10 billion per month, and then
maybe we'll be able to stop a bunch of flight school flunkies or teens with explosives in their underwear."
I'm all for the private sector doing whatever it wants as long it doesn't
steal money from the public via taxes, for the purpose of dumping it in its own pocket (i. e. subsidies) or to advance it's agenda.
If a corporation/private entity wants to spend money on something, fine--but it must do it on its
own dime, or from voluntary contributions,
not by forcibly taking money from me.
Practically every other country on Earth already has towers on their own soil--towers that can be used to triangulate coordinates (i. e. GPS) provided they work w/standard protocols, and today, they all do (GSM, CDMA, hello?)
Ships at sea have been able to navigate themselves for years without GPS.
It's also alot cheaper to simply rebuild the tower after the attack and/or operate redundant towers than maintaining satellites in orbit.
And, after detecting the nuclear missile, can it stop it?
Right, and the US govt, after spending $10 trillion on defense,
still has no defense against NEOs.
I would think a private corporation, funded from private donations, could do a lot better than that.