A Continent-Wide Switzerland?

Reading this week’s edition of The Libertarian Enterprise, I took notice of an resurrected article by long-time friend L. Neil Smith

What he’s proposing in in his reposted article Radically Decentralized Defense is nothing morethan a continent-wide version of the Swiss Confederation, commonly known as Switzerland.

I don’t say this to disparage his article, but to support it by showing that YES there IS historical precedent on hand for his idea. In fact, I wholeheartedly endorse it, and further note that a significant number of America’s Founders would have supported it, as well.

An addition, though — current (OK, government-sponsored) laser research is expanding to levels you’re only hinting at in this article. At present, they’re working on truck-mountable units capable of shooting down artillery shells and mortar rounds in flight ^[1]. Where I say “working on,” I don’t mean developing the technology, I mean getting ready for field deployment. Add to that the fact that they’ve already deployed laser units (again, mounted on a truck) for use in destroying IEDs from a distance ^[2].

NOTES

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_high_energy_laser#Demonstrator
2. defense-update.com/products/t/thor-IED.htm

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