DEFENSE CUTS & OVER-EXTENDED MILITARY
Emperors realized that if they kept citizens preoccupied with endless external wars, the citizens would be distracted from complaining about internal problems and political strife.
Greek philosopher Plato wrote:
“The tyrant must be always getting up a war …”
“He is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.”
James Madison warned at the Constitutional Convention, June 29, 1787 (Max Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. I (1911, p. 465):
“In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate.
Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.
The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended.
Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”