[nomel]

Military is there to protect enforce the sovereignty of the society. Without it, the society is at the whims of its neighbors.

> Navy is important.

Navy is military, of course.

> nobody is endangering the US or Canada

Or, nobody is endangering the US or Canada because of the US military.

[feet]

Or they could try getting along with their neighbors instead of threatening them

[nomel]

Military is used, the vast majority of the time, as a deterrent to prevent threats. There's a war going on in Ukraine right now that is a good example of how sometimes "getting along" isn't an option, for one of the parties, who didn't have a sufficient deterrent.

You have to either accept that some humans are "bad", and have deterrents for them, or you have wait for a "bad" human to come and take what they want.

[feet]

Wow its almost like that could have been avoid if both sides tried to get along

Russia seems like its being an arsehole, the "not threatening your neighbors" bit goes both ways

Its possible to have mechanisms to deal with bad actors that aren't blatant threats of violence

[nomel]

> could have been avoid if both sides tried to get along

I don't understand this. Putin believes Russia will benefit more from not getting along, taking what he thinks Russia needs, meaning he thinks that the current war is the best course of action, and beneficial in the long term. What would the motivation be for "getting along" when that would be detrimental? Agreements can't alway be made, because "best" is different depending on the perspective. For example, look at Nazi Germany. Non violent mechanisms wouldn't convince them that genocide wasn't the best course of action.

> Its possible to have mechanisms to deal with bad actors that aren't blatant threats of violence

Do you have an example, ideally one that has proven successful in the past? Currently, sanctions, limiting bank transactions, etc are used as non violent mechanisms. All of these were used against Russia, yet tanks still came over the border. What sort of non violent mechanism do you think could have been used have been to stop, or now remove, the Russian tanks within the Ukrainian border?

When I say this, I don't mean it in a way that is belittling, but you might want to look at some history books for examples of the perceived irrationality of leaders that result in wars. You can't always make someone agree with you.