Clear and Present Danger

Law, without force, is impotent.

–PASCAL

It is the function of police to exercise force, or to threaten it, in execution of the state's purpose, internally and under normal conditions. It is the function of armed forces to exercise force, or the threat of it, externally in normal times and internally only in times that are abnormal…

The degree of force which the state is prepared to apply in the execution of its purpose… is as much as the government of the day considers it necessary or expedient to use to avoid a breakdown in its function and a surrender of its responsibilities.

–GENERAL SIR JOHN HACKETT