The Price of Liberty—and of Defense

Bruce D. Porter

The British statesman Edmund Burke, contemplating the terrors unleashed by the French Revolution, concluded that a new and frightful age was upon the world—an age that would be marked by the perpetual insecurity of nations. Burke foresaw that with the passing of Europe’s golden age, “the unbought grace of life” and “the cheap defense of nations” were gone forever. He also foresaw that the emerging modern era would be dominated by “sophisters, economists, and calculators.”