Say, for the sake of argument, the U.S. had no standing army in 1941. What would have happened from December 8th onward?
If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for War.No nation can survive without a standing military. No nation can be on a defensive footing without such.
America had the army it did in 1941 because the progressives had already fired up the military industrial complex during WWI. Prior to WWI, America’s military was virtually nonexistent outside of those remnants of the civil war and the Spanish American war in the late 1800s.
The military was mustered from militias handed to the federal government during wartime. It was the responsibility of the governors of each state to ensure every able bodies man was prepared in the event of a wind up to war. Otherwise, standing armies did not exist. The army and navy in the early years of this nation were relegated to the frontiers and borders and the patrolling of our waterways, respectively.