Hillary, is that you?
Need some Twilight Zone music here.
"Defense of the homeland is defense of life and property of the fellow citizen against an invasion."
Oh? And what do you call defense of life and property of the fellow citizen against home-grown barbarians? What do you call maintaining a decent and moral society in which the life and property of the citizens are routinely safe from their fellow citizens?
"In particular, building up a cadre of militarily trained youth in anticipation of some imaginary invasion at some unspecified point in the future whets the aggressive instincts of the state and is a grave sin."
That is far and away the worst looney-left whacko bilgewater I've ever seen posted on FR.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you wish peace, prepare for war. This is an immutable principle of life on Planet Earth, and I'm sure the Romans got that proverb from an earlier civilization who got it from an earlier and so on back to Urrgh the cave man, who noticed that the tribe down the river with 15 warriors didn't attack his tribe that had 30.
Further, the state does not have "instincts" to whet, so your position is in that regard utter nonsense.
On top of that, given the scope of aggressive evil in the world, it is lunacy of the first water to dream that being prepared to oppose it could be "grave sin."
Yet further, when military veterans return to society at large, they are not a "cadre," with all the spooky boogy-man implications of that loaded term.
And finally (because I'm tired of typing, and not because there are no more fallacies in your position) military veterans bring much more than military training home with them, and the things they bring make them more valuable members of society.
Jeez, did you just wander over from DU?
Legitimate role of the military is to win defensive wars. In America that translates to no need for draft. Everything else is statist fluff, which causes your typing fatigue.