Dr. Ray L. Winstead
Professor of Biology (retired),
Indiana University of
Pennsylvania
June 17, 2022
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I believe that a strong national defense – a strong military – is essential for both the survival of the country and the best way to decrease the likelihood of being attacked or threatened IN ANY WAY. If we are even perceived as being a weak nation militarily, then that will make an attack or threat on our country IN ANY WAY even more likely. These days, in addition to defense by conventional means, a good national defense means energetically increasing our development and deployment of electronic means to combat any type of electronic attack – both on the new “battlefield” and on our everyday infrastructure.
I see a strong national defense as a deterrent, an effective means to avoid conflicts in the first place. This deterrent would be a result of actually having the capacity to defend the country from an attack of any kind. Being prepared to defend ourselves is a reasonable objective. Doing otherwise, e.g., by reducing our military effectiveness (and advertising it to the world!) is ensuring even greater problems in the future. The reality is that some people in the world want to either control us or kill us. Not recognizing that fact or only acting halfheartedly on that fact is naïve and dangerous to the country.
I believe there must be a commitment to a philosophical approach of having a strong military and the commitment to military budgets that support such a strong national defense so that the thought of doing us harm does not even enter the minds of our potential enemies.
I see national defense as the basic, fundamental responsibility of the federal government. If we do not have a secure country, then all our other worthy aspirations for our society are doomed from the start. A miscalculation of “already having enough” without further development for the future is shortsighted and a disastrous approach for the future of the country.
Having a strong national military is consistent with the valid position of self-defense - and is not the same as proving aggressive intent. Any reasonable person does not want a war – but some things are worth fighting for and doing what can be done in providing a deterrent to war.
My Facebook Post 10-2-2023:
So, what is the fundamental purpose of our military? I think it is summed up in the following excerpt of a speech my brother heard in person when he was a cadet at West Point. The photo below is the author of the speech when he himself was a cadet. As a further footnote, I recall my father telling me and others about an occasion when the author, my father, and a few others were sitting at the same table eating a meal outside when enemy bombs started exploding around them. The others at the table immediately scattered for shelter, however the author just sat there, leaving himself and my father sitting at the table alone with each other. My father told us that he was waiting for the author to leave first. However, the author said to my father, “The enemy bomb that will kill me has not been made yet.” At that point my father said, “Please excuse me, General,” and left for shelter. This story illustrates that my father observed, believed, and said that the author had an effective way to keep fear under absolute control. My father wrote “I happen to like the man. I lived with him, worked with him, observed him under fire. Fear to me is a normal emotion. I think that [the author], like everybody else, recognized fear. But he had it under absolute control. I have seen him stand in the middle of the road in a Japanese air-raid. After the air-raid was over, he got back in his automobile and went on to where he was headed to begin with.”
Excerpt of the speech to West Point cadets on the purpose of the military:
” . . . And through all this welter of change and development, your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable – it is to win our wars.
Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication.
All other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment.
But you are the ones who are trained to fight: yours is the profession of arms – the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory.
That if you lose, the nation will be destroyed; that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty – Honor – Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men’s minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the nation’s war guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle.
For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be.
These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution.
Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night – Duty – Honor – Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense.
From your ranks come-the great captains who hold the nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.
The Long Gray Line has never failed us.
Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words – Duty – Honor – Country.
This does not mean that you are war mongers. On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. . . . ”
Of course, the author of the speech was General Douglas MacArthur.
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