If we want to just protect the nation we can cut it in half.
We need air, sea and space above all, the land forces can be cut- but the treaties must be abrogated first.
I went online and at the site, "the balance.com", the total military budget, including all those departments associated with it, actually comes to $1.13 trillion, and, by the way, it says there are 761,000 civilians employed by the DOD.
I'd say half is still bloated; perhaps you might have read some/any of the books by Andrew Bacevich, whose reality based critiques of the inside the Beltway thinking on foreign policy are grounded in both personal experience and and an understanding of a word they seem not to recognize; "limits". I have no problem with us having the world's best military, but to have one with such an overwhelming advantage is a benefit only on paper, with no real world benefit.
The idea our country, whose % share of the world's GDP is shrinking each year, can somehow militarily garrison and control such a changing world, much less have the moral right to do so, is absurd, as surely the last 19 years of futility against military nonentities have proven to any rational and objective mind.
"surely the last 19 years of futility against military nonentities"
B..b...but we kicked the shit out of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in '89-90! You gotta go back further than 19 years for examples of decisive American military victory, my man.
If we want to just protect the nation we can cut it in half.
We need air, sea and space above all, the land forces can be cut- but the treaties must be abrogated first.
I went online and at the site, "the balance.com", the total military budget, including all those departments associated with it, actually comes to $1.13 trillion, and, by the way, it says there are 761,000 civilians employed by the DOD.
I'd say half is still bloated; perhaps you might have read some/any of the books by Andrew Bacevich, whose reality based critiques of the inside the Beltway thinking on foreign policy are grounded in both personal experience and and an understanding of a word they seem not to recognize; "limits". I have no problem with us having the world's best military, but to have one with such an overwhelming advantage is a benefit only on paper, with no real world benefit.
The idea our country, whose % share of the world's GDP is shrinking each year, can somehow militarily garrison and control such a changing world, much less have the moral right to do so, is absurd, as surely the last 19 years of futility against military nonentities have proven to any rational and objective mind.
"surely the last 19 years of futility against military nonentities"
B..b...but we kicked the shit out of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in '89-90! You gotta go back further than 19 years for examples of decisive American military victory, my man.