What did George Washington think about a standing army?

The question of a standing army was one upon which I held firm and considered views, forged through bitter experience in the field. I was convinced that temporary enlistments and reliance on militia were ruinous to our cause — in money, in discipline, and in the confidence they inspired in our enemies. As I wrote in my Circular to State Governments, “A moderate compact force on a permanent establishment capable of acquiring the discipline essential to military operations would have been able to make head against the enemy without comparison better than the throngs of Militia”. The intervals between one expiring army and the gathering of the next had more than once brought us to the edge of catastrophe. I was also well aware of the common prejudice against standing armies in peacetime. But I thought it was applied wrongly to our situation. As I wrote to John Banister, “The prejudices in other Countries has only gone to them in time of Peace, and these from their not having, in general cases, any of the ties, the concerns or interests of Citizens or any other dependence, than what flowed from their Military employ; in short, from their being Mercenaries; hirelings” Our soldiers were citizens with every stake in the republic's survival — not hired swords of a distant crown. In plain terms: a nation that wages a long war on militia and short enlistments, I argued, deserves to lose what it is fighting for.