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 Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Well there are some historical examples where this argument is demonstrably untrue. In the war of 1812 for example, there didn't exist a centralized command structure in the US that could draw on resources (generally, soldiers and guns) to defend the interests of the country as a whole. So you had states like VA saying 'this war with the British and Canada doesn't concern us why should we send soldiers to fight it? They're no threat to us.' Meanwhile the Brits could draw soldiers from every corner of their Empire to fight over N. America. And arguably that is the only reason the US doesn't own Canada today.
Conversely, had the power been centralized, the US gov't could have drafted 300k soldiers and sent them off to take Canada from the British. That it didn't happen that way is wholly because there wasn't a sufficiently strong central gov't in the US with the right to exercise power over individual states.
The bold is an important premise.
I'm focusing on people's interests. A country's best interest probably include tax and focus on war. But the people in a country are not the same as the country, and those peoples' interests are not the same as the state's interest.
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