Jefferson was thinking about the large standing armies of Europe that tended to cause mischief. He was also realizing that the US was largely free from threats of invasion,so had no need for a standing army. He didn't seem to object much to having a Navy, though. And he didn't object much to a our militias killing off any of the natives in the way of progress.

Note that these letters were before 1812, when an army came in handy when the threat of invasion wasn't so small after all.

It doesn't take much to build an army when you need one. Not that easy, as noted during the Civil War, but it gets done. After WWI we pretty much shut down the Army to under 200,000 professional cadre, but look how fast we ramped it up after Pearl Harbor.

But he's talking about now, and he's talking about peacetime. The first problem with that is there are plenty of people around who will argue that we are not actually at peace. Then there are those who will argue that it is in our interest to extend a veil of protection over our allies and business partners in order to maintain stability. Being the only superpower, we have obligations, and may be the last protection from worldwide anarchy. Then there's that chunk of the GDP that the Pentagon owns, shutting it all down would set us into a major depression.

He's also talking about a small group of malcontents starting trouble. And who were caught. He thinks this is evidence of a larger problem, but gives no evidence of that.

Being a Quaker, my immediate reaction is to damn the torpedoes and shut it all down. In practical terms, however, much of this is true, and much can be argued, particularly about just how we're using this power we have.

military and intelligence elements of our government have already taken over.

The men and women in our national security institutions are the most entrenched in their jobs. For example, because the military promotes from within and its promotions are reviewed only by members of our democratically elected government when the very top positions are at issue, the most staunchly entrenched bureaucracy that we have is in our military and intelligence organizations.

There is no objective way to review their performance. Our wars become longer and longer and more and more expensive and take place in areas that are more and more remote. Expenditures are mysterious, some of them designedly so.

Right now, our national security functions just sort of work on their own like some diabolical, robotic mechanism.

This is the greatest threat to our country now -- the national security bureaucracy. It is a black hole that swallows money and regurgitates death.

We need national security. But we need national security that WE control. We don't need national security that controls us.

I don't know how to fix this because, as I said, we do need national security. You cannot live in a big city without locking your doors when you leave your house. National security is a fact of life. And nowadays, national security means a strong military defense.

The problem is how do we, the people, control our national security institutions not whether or not we should have them.

Right now, we are really ruled by our generals and our intelligence whatever they are called. They keep a low profile, but they run things.

What is likely to happen next? Struggles for power within our national security apparatus. And then one part of it will rise to run everything -- and take over our entire government. That is the coup that we can anticipate unless we do something to get more transparency in our national security function and more balance between our elected government and this parallel bureaucracy.

is as war machine builder and mercenaries. Everything else is outsourced.

The discipline and coordination of the training is a legitimate reason for a standing army. I do NOT however think we should have troops outside our borders without a legitimate reason. Why the fuck are there still troops in Germany? I'm a bit of an isolationist in that respect, but if we need a rapid response to a situation, trained and coordinated forces are essential.

the Russian army and Russian military aid to the Syrian state????