Here are some excerpts from Washington's Farewell Address. What advice does he give us? Do you agree or disagree? There is a difference between strength of arms and a large military establishment. “While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations … Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.” Both hostilities and relationship with foreign nations should be approached with care. “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. … As avenues to foreig