I agree with your sentiment, but military service - around the world - is more of an alternative to povery vs. a path out. And we can't build a corporation with a goal more than two quarters out, or a government more than the next midterm election; what are the odds we find 5+ generations of commanders who can stay aligned?
>And we can't build a corporation with a goal more than two quarters out
Yet that is what all the corporations at the top of the market cap lists have done over the previous 30 years. You think Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, TSMC, and a multitude of others only have goals 2 quarters out?
Pharmaceutical businesses where the trials take 5 and 10+ years to bring a medicine to market don't have long term goals? Oil businesses that need a decade to build and cultivate an offshore field. There are so many other examples.
From an American perspective, this is flat-out not the case. The majority of American servicemembers come from the middle three quintiles of income - it is literally a middle-class institution. It IS an alternative means to acquire a college education for the lower middle class, but the bottom quintile, the truly poor, generally do not qualify to serve.
I agree with your sentiment, but military service - around the world - is more of an alternative to povery vs. a path out. And we can't build a corporation with a goal more than two quarters out, or a government more than the next midterm election; what are the odds we find 5+ generations of commanders who can stay aligned?