Health, education, and policing produce benefits that communities can observe directly. Replacing public police with private security risks creating private armed power, while healthcare preserves the investment made in educating and training a workforce. Armed forces resemble a fire service whose greatest value appears during a crisis. Much of their daily work, however, occurs far from the people financing it and aims to contain problems before they arrive. That distance encourages cuts even though modern threats travel quickly and maritime trade makes distant disruption a domestic problem.
Chapter · 27:11-30:44
Invisible deterrence loses budget arguments
Armed forces prevent distant problems that voters rarely see, making their value harder to demonstrate than everyday public services.