A more militaristic US from its inception

The US was born out of war however it wasn't ruled by warlords or generals as some nation have been. What if the US had a more militaristic element where only those with military backgrounds could serve as leader as military service was made compulsory?
 
The US was born out of war however it wasn't ruled by warlords or generals as some nation have been. What if the US had a more militaristic element where only those with military backgrounds could serve as leader as military service was made compulsory?
That would fundamentally change the very fiber of the American nation. While I can certainly see the benefits that one might think would come from having only leaders with military experience, but it could turn rotten very easily and a major founding pillar of American democracy is civilian oversight of the armed forces.

There is also the practical issue of there simply not being enough financial resources early in American history for compulsory military service. If we did try it, it would likely become little more than a social club at first as there would not be enough money to ensure everyone was armed and trained properly. Training especially is stupid expensive. A good friend of mine who is in the army now actually was just telling me about how one of the main advantages that the US military has is that its reserves (specifically the National Guard) train more than most nations' professional troops, to say nothing for the regular army and Marine Corps. That is because we are one of the few nations in the world today that has the sheer financial power to train our many hundreds of thousands of combat troops and reserves in a way that is financially impossible for most other nations.
 
The US was born out of war however it wasn't ruled by warlords or generals as some nation have been. What if the US had a more militaristic element where only those with military backgrounds could serve as leader as military service was made compulsory?

No, it was born by and large out of philosophy and had war thrust upon it.
 
No, it was born by and large out of philosophy and had war thrust upon it.

Hmm sounds like semantics. Behind almost every war in history has been a philosophy guiding the fight. The US was a former British possession that gained its independence through war, as opposed to that of several other former British colonies who achieved such without, at later periods for example.
 
Hmm sounds like semantics. Behind almost every war in history has been a philosophy guiding the fight. The US was a former British possession that gained its independence through war, as opposed to that of several other former British colonies who achieved such without, at later periods for example.

We tried too: have you heard of the olive branch petition? Or that if Britain had denied and withdrawn the rights, say, Canadians or Australians were entitled to as any other Englishmen when they asked and instead declared their intent to violently suppress them those colonies wouldn't have fought just as hard?
 
When did Canada gain total independence from Britain? Wasn’t it in the 1980s? Britain was a very savage nation. They preferred embarrassing people rather than killing them, sure, but effectively it was the same urge that previous empires had known well.

The idea that colonists would ask for representation in Parliament was unthinkable. Even Newfoundland never got that right.
 
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