Federalist VIII is an extremely relevant and important read.  Hamilton details one of the most persuasive arguments for maintaining union among the former British colonies of America.  In this reasoning, he inadvertently comments on the current geo-political environment as I see it.  I will take the following liberties with his argument to break it up into sections and discuss the concepts as the flow through the article. 

Conflicts are a result of borders

“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct.”

He talks about the relationship between separate governments and conflict.  The idea here encompasses a theory that competition among the various entities will always result from different regional economies, different international relationships, different neighboring countries, rather than being focused on an outside enemy, the enemy becomes the state which borders, the paradigm of scarcity has more merit in this environment.

In a peaceful republic the main source of power is the legislature

“It is the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.”  “Small states…with… disciplined armies, have often triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural strength…”

In this country we have an executive for precisely the reasons that nations have always allowed certain powers to fall on a small number of people, the menacing predictability of emergency.  In Rome the military leader started of being only called to lead the country in time of war.  As the republic expanded we came to a time of great triumphful military leaders.  In the time of Pompeii and Caesar such leaders were so important to the functions of Rome that they almost had to deny the requests of imperial status.  Recall that Caesar was killed for assuming something like this title.  This lesson is with us when George Washington steps down from the executive for fear that the power of the office would grow too great.  Furthermore, small disciplined forces have always triumphed over larger nations which declined to spend a larger percentage of their economic capability on “defense.”  In a world of many borders, or political and religious affiliation, the motivation of every country to have an “arms race” will weight the economy towards the guns side of the “guns and butter” dichotomy.  This tolerance for a large military force necessarily moves an economy within its production possibilities frontier and reduces the welfare of the total economy.  Peace is necessary for a republic, and peace is contrary to a world with tribal tendencies.

The progress of efficiency can be applied to wars, increasing the appearance of hostility

“The industrious habits of the people…are incompatible with…a nation of soldiers...  The means of revenue…and the science of finance… have produced and entire revolution in the science of war, and… (are) the inseparable companions of frequent hostility.”

This can be taken two ways.  The first is that any nation can now gain forces with the same budget.  Within one country this benefits the commander-in-chief of the nation by a rise in power at his disposal and is its own temptation.  Secondly, the use of force by small groups is now more readily available.  We need look no further than the rocket propelled grenades that are being used to bring down aircraft in areas of conflict.

Instant defense

“The smallness of the army forbids competition with the natural strength of the community.”

Again, Hamilton points to the propagation of peace as having a positive relationship with economic efficiency (meaning here more productive use of natural resources including human capital).   

“But within a country, where the perpetual menacings of danger oblige the government to be always prepared to repel it, her armies must be numerous enough for INSTANT DEFENSE.”

By menacings of danger we see that in dangerous world republics give way to dictatorships.  If this threat is pretended for the growth of executive power, how even greater the harm to a society for this would represent the needless rejection of our vital liberties and institutions determined to protect natural rights.  This instant defense justifies the even larger creation of armies.  This section discusses the difference between militia and standing armies.  When countries have real or pretended conflicts standing armies increase, the executive power increases and the republican protections of individual rights gives way to the concentrated control of the minority in power. 

Legacy of WWII

“If Britain had been situated on this continent, and had been compelled… to make her military establishments at home coextensive with those of the other great powers of Europe, she, like them would in all probability at this day be a victim to the absolute power of one man.”

Hamilton starts to wrap up his argument with the ultimate end of his theoretical slippery slope.  This fear of a dictatorship should and has lasted in the minds of modern man.  In Hamilton’s world this was only recently the aims of a government to justly throw off the ties to a dictatorship, however benign the offence, its aims were to increase the malignancy.  In modern times we see a country which keeps a large stock of capital (bombs and humans) ready to wipe out any threat to the power of the world’s “democracies” (“make the world safe for democracy”) which has lasted to the present day.  It is unclear that without the rise of a dictator of sufficient power both in Berlin and Moscow, with ideas opposed to those we nominally protect, that the US would have had any reason to increase its global domination.  These two powers different in motive are similar in ends.  The current president of the US has more power than either of these two heinous dictators dreamed.  The ascendancy was clearly different, there is no comparison in means, but regardless the concentration of power is specifically the cause of future harms. 

While we learn from Hamilton about the benefit (increased economic efficiency) which comes from decreasing the absolute number of borders, we decide that the cost is sometimes very high.  Imagine a world of one world order.  We would by all reason try to make it a republic, because in theory soldiers would not be needed (they would be called police).  If Hamilton’s theory holds then we would see that republics would be more likely to persist assuming they were formed.  If a democracy would make sense instinctively, consider where the balance of power would be.  A China and India coalition could vote to redistribute wealth to their countries, precipitating a civil war unlikely to be one by the numerical inferior.  The US would play the role of the insurgent, trying to preserve its own status quo.  The efficiency of the modern army would allow us to precipitate enough violence to hinder the progress of the larger collective, but not sufficient to forever dominate it.  The policy implications of this future speculation seem to be:  A) to promote a form of republic which would preserve the US domination of global politics (akin to the UN security council) B) eradicate all threatening cultures and maintain a minority reign on the globe.  It is important for the sake of clarity however to recall that these are not in line with Hamilton’s ideas of what the US union would provide.  If he were drafting a defense of the WTO I find it reasonable that he would suggest to his US (similar to contemporary NY) that its best interest lay in determining a regional specialty in a more broad global context.