rather like fire insurance or, in fact, that share of our taxes that pays for police, ambulance and fire services: we pay those bills, not happily, but always in the hope that we will not ever need to use what we pay for. we should look at out military as a tool, something we would, in a perfect world, not need and something we would rather not use, but something that we have at our disposal and that we expect to be ready and effective if, when, actually, we do need it. the military we need will, without a shadow of a doubt, cost us 2%+ of our (ever growing) 