Defense

Defense in it's most basic sense is the ability of some entity-- an individual, a group of individuals, etc;--- to challenge or rise against adverse forces, and to react in a manner to protect themselves from a dangerous, or hostile enviroment. When thinking of defense in it's most basic sense one may conjure up images of a cavemen,'Oogh',fighting off a sabertooth tiger. Defense is very much like that, it is the simple instinct of one orgainism to protect itself from an outside force that it deems detrimental to it's existance.

Defense in the modern world goes beyond 'Oogh',our caveman, and his club beating down tigers. Today defense is a multibillion dollar exploration into the latest, greatest technologies. Defense today, for many Americans, means a fighter jet buzzing overhead, or raining down bombs on 'evilones' oversees. Defense means a gun on the nightstand, a can of mace in the purse, a Club--the popular lock for steering wheels--on their car, a five-sided building with men in pressed pants, decorated with metals, standing over maps, and saving our country from those who wish us harm. Defense has become a 200-plus billion dollar budget allocation to the Armed Forces alone in the United States, not to mention Homeland Security; the FBI, the CIA, the NSC, and the thousands of police departments from New York City, New York, to Proctorville, Ohio.

Defense, though in many senses, has reamined the same; we all need to protect ourselves and those that we value--ou r family, our friends,our neighbors,the citizens of our country-- from the adversity of our enviroment, and the dangerous that surround us. Though defense may have started with Ugh fighting off a tiger --though it likely did not--, the business of defense can no longer be seen as a solo operation: Any real defense is a common defense