Military strength

The Economist should be worried about the British defense budget. Leftist politicians have decimated the British armed forces. There is a developing consensus that the U.S. taxpayer should not be financing the protection of Western Europe so these countries can have more welfare programs.

Prepared for a war against who? The fourth-rate militaries of Iran and North Korea? Leave it to right-wing demagogues to hype up the threat posed by adversaries to justify feeding more taxpayer dollars into overly complex weapons systems that don't work as advertised, and require the government to spend even more to bail out its bad investment.

We need an overkill-dominant military to ensure that the world continues to accept our promise-backed scrip in exchange for the material things that make our domestic world go around. And also as a back-up in case plan A ceases to work.

For the record, before he stepped down former Sec. of Defense Gates told Europe that they needed to pay more towards NATO. (Didn't the British and French run out of bombs while bombing pip-squeak Libya?)

The same could be said about S. Korea, Japan, etc.

We are subsidizing other nations and digging ourselves deeper into debt.

Regards

I'm surprise Mr. Boot didn't mention that we need to massively increase the Defense budget because our southern border has and continues to be overrun.

Regards

Each cutback, he argues, has left America unprepared for future conflicts.

And I could leave my vehicle running all of the time so I won't have to worry about it not starting.

Regards

On a more general note, I don't see any reason why the USA shouldn't have a defense spend closer to the UK and France in terms of %GDP (Both are less than 3% vs 4.7% for the US).

All 3 countries are active in the world arena and (as far as it is possible), have similarish goals. More importantly I'd say the chances of being invaded is about the the same (that is to say zero)...

Personally I was hoping for the Tea Party to march on Washington to demand the privatization of the armed forces in order to lower their taxes. (After all defence spending consumes far more tax $ than the much maligned stimulus, which itself was 30% tax cut)

That way much like our current medical system, you can buy the protection you need (assuming you are rich enough). I foresee an excellent future in the market for F15 pilots charging by the hour to do tasks such as crop dusting or deposing the heads of small countries or certain town mayors.

A little off-topic, but you did link to it, so here's something I found on the Wikipedia War of 1812 page:

"Americans then believed that many in Upper Canada would rise up and greet a United States invading army as liberators, which did not happen."

Given that most of the population were immigrants from America, I think that this was an early lesson that this strategy never, ever worked.

But remember that America has a very poor history of defending itself on its own soil. The last time America tried to take over Canada, the Canucks pushed the Yankees back, burned down the Whitehouse and were the major beneficiaries of the war.

Now, to defend itself against the very likely scenario of an invading army of say 500 million Chinese soldiers, all prepared to die for their country, and backed up by their allies, the Russians with naval, air and nuclear power, America will need to beef up its standing army a bit. America needs to be very very afraid. 20% of budget on defense is nowehere near enough. I suggest at least 50% of the national budget is needed.

Remember...America is a 'Security State'. That is its purpose. This is no time to go soft. Not when the enemies are so powerful.

you know while we are cutting back why don't we go into isolation and let some dictator take over a large chunk of the map

I think that Mr. Boot has missed several vital points. He isn't taking American security requirements, the international situation and economic realities into consideration when he looks at these numbers. The largest reductions all occurred before the Cold War, anda can be attributed to a national crisis* that required more soldiers or a major world-changing war that the U.S then tried to return to relative isolation from. Let's look at the wars the author mentions in the link and see what the considerations were.

The American Revolution: Following this initially the United States wasn't even a single nation (that's where the term 'states' comes from) but rather thirteen supposedly allied nations. Even if the U.S had the money (which it didn't) it would have been almost impossible politically.
Mr. Boot mentions the Whiskey Rebellion, the brief naval clashes with France, the Barbary Pirates and the War of 1812. To those I respond: The Whiskey Rebellion would have happened regardless of the size of the military. France in the late 18th century was a major power in Europe. There really wasn't much the poorer U.S could have done on its own. The U.S had some success in Tripoli with a coup. Lastly, much like France, the U.K in 1812 was a major power. If it hadn't been for the Napoleonic Wars the U.S would have suffered even worse. There was nothing the U.S could have done.

The American Civil War: Large numbers of soldiers were needed to fight a major war that threatened the nation's continued existence. They could hardly be reasonably maintained after the war. Boot also forgets that the U.S in the 1870s through 1890s wasn't facing any major threats. Mexico was considerably weaker after its defeat in the 1840s, Canada and the U.K had no interest in invasion nor reason to invade and the rest of North America was rapidly being taken over by the U.S. There was no need for the large military of the Civil War.

The Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars: As Boot himself admits, neither enemy was impressive. Boot does point out the relative weakness of the U.S army but completely ignores the increasing power of the U.S navy and also ignores the fact that at the time the U.S wasn't fighting any major powers nor did it have any real plans to do so.

World War I: Boot is correct about the fact that the U.S army was relatively weak but once again forgets that the U.S navy was not so weak and also forgets that the U.S was determined to stay out of the war until 1917, at which point it didn't make a difference whether or not the army was powerful.

World War II: In the 1920s the U.S wasn't interested in making great moves in international powerplays so a large army again was not necessary, and he completely omits the fact that the 1930s was overshadowed by the Great Depression that put clear limits on how much could be spent on the military, especially as the only strategic concerns were the distant Soviet Union (which wasn't very impressive at the time), Germany (which should have been checked by the U.K and France) and Japan (which should have been checked by the U.K and U.S).
After World War II the U.S had thought that it simply needed a force to control parts of Europe and Asia and was trying to avoid a postwar recession.

The Korean War: There was no way that the U.S could have predicted that the North Koreans were about to launch an attack, nor could they have predicted that Communist China would be dragged into the war. Additionally it could have happened at many different points in the world, was the U.S expected to have a major military presence in all of them?

The drawdown after Korea and the Vietnam War: The drawdown was not a problem in itself, the problem was that in situations such as Hungary the U.S could not do anything to militarily support anti-Communists (and it might have led to a world war). Additionally all I can say is that I think the author has little understanding of the Vietnam War.

Afghanistan and Iran: The Soviets were never deterred from Afghanistan because of the U.S military and Iran was a special operation bungled by mistakes and poor plans, not something related to the relative size of the army.

1990s: The U.S didn't have major enemies that need more than several hundred thousand soldiers. The navy and air force were more than capable of protecting the U.S from invasion and there weren't likely to be any interstate wars that required the U.S to be involved, not to mention the superior training and technology of the U.S compared to any possible enemy.

Iraq and Afghanistan: He is completely ignoring the political nature of the conflicts, just like the Vietnam War.

To put it as bluntly as I can; Mr. Boot is completely (and possibly deliberately) ignoring the strategic and economic considerations of the planners and instead focuses only on the army's size. He isn't reliable.

*A separatist rebellion and a civil war.

I'm sorry, but whenever people begin to shout about the sorry state of military spending, I am reminded that our current navy is larger than the next thirteen largest navies combined, eleven of which belong to friendly governments.

I know that Chinese military spending is increasing, and if rates on our part are expected to continue to decline and their rates of defense spending continue unabated, they will eclipse our level of military spending in the mid 2030's.

In other news, the Chinese purchases (not built) their very first aircraft carrier from Ukraine, a ship that was still being built at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. It was recently spotted at sea and clearly is a threat to all fourteen American carrier fleets.

There are many countries in the world that are regional powers, and a threat to their neighbors. The US has the only military in the world that can drop bombs within minutes and boots within days. Nothing in Mr. Obama's plan seeks to change this clearly dominant military strategy.

With current military technology, is there a conceivable use for a large standing army aside from attempting to occupy foreign nations? The idea that an actual war to defend American territory would turn on infantry seems crazy.

The problem is that too many Americans see the military in a quasi religious light. We are made to feel like the antichrist for simply asking if we really need weapon X or base Y. And considering how much of our national deficit and debt have been created by the Pentagon, our cultural refusal to rationally examine the defense budget amounts to national self-delusion.

I wish we were having a serious and probing national debate over this issue. I wish a presidential candidate could just ask "what do we really need to spend on defense?" Even phrasing the question as DiA does surrenders the high ground to the pork barrel patriots. Asking "how much could we trim the budget" assumes that the status quo is a rational basis from which to begin. It is not.

I have enough military background to know that rock solid defense of the fifty states could be accomplished for a small fraction of current expenditure. And we should quickly curtail spending on legacy platforms like manned aircraft, large capital ships, and battle tanks. These are the armored knights and dreadnaughts of yesteryear. At best, they will prove to be obsolete and undeployable in a major war. At worst, they will be death traps like HMS Prince of Wales or USS Arizona.

We should spend more developing air, sea (submersible), and land drones. We should spend more on space and cyber war. We should spend more on the State Department. Ultimately, these will buy us more security for less money.

The big difference is that personnel costs have gone from about 10 percent to over 50 percent of the defense budget. Having a large standing army is very expensive. Members of the armed forces make about 5 or 6 times as much money as I made in Vietnam.

How the budget is allocated has as much to do with war fighting capabilities as the the percentage of GDP. If we want to scare the hell out of China, we order another 20 fast attack submarines!

I'm afraid you have missed the point. It doesn't matter that you have used military force effectively. All that matters is that you keep building it up. Even reducing the rate of budget growth is going to be characterized as "cutting defense."

And that's if nobody else in the world is increasing the size of their military. Suppose, for example, that China buys an obsolete aircraft carrier shell, and starts trying to finish it -- even though they have no experience using such a thing. That's obviously a huge, not to say existential, threat which demands a huge increase in military spending.

Honestly, these people seem to be taking paranoia to a whole new level. And their blatant disrespect for the capabilities of our existing military is astounding.

The US-Canadian Border is the longest unguarded border in the world. In most areas there is not even a fence.

In addition the continent is protected by the world's largest moats: The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

This has saved the military billions of dollars and enabled it to be reoriented as an overseas expeditionary force, master of the seas and supreme air power.

The expense of employee personnel with tail ended benefits, high risk of disability and an epidemic of PTSD has curtailed hiring.

Leveraging unpiloted drones and other robotic technology is proving both effective, cheap and necessary.

Half of all plane hours flown in combat are now done by drones. More US Air Force pilots are being trained for drones than for manned flying.

Drones are the biggest fear of Al Qaeda. And they are proving effective at keeping them off balance, paranoid and psychologically terrorized.

The US Navy and US Air Force utilize technology with a small personnel and land footprint. Ground forces are too expensive, too susceptible and too risky.

American has to Athenize its forces: concentrate on Freedom of the Seas, Global Air Strike Capability, Terrorist plinking, and Air Superiority.

America can specialize in eliminating leadership targets like Bin Ladin, Saddam Hussein, and Qaadafi. Predator Assassinations. Future targets: Al Assad, the Kim Dynasty, and Robert Mugabe.

Let the UN provide ground forces who will draw fire and IEDs. American lives are too expensive.

The Air War in Libya and Bosnia may be the blueprint for intervention. NO more land wars in Asia Minor or the Middle East.

Or alternatively, the United States can withdraw into an impenetrable fortress, but would the world be better off?

Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Qaadafi and Bin Ladin would say yes.

I think the better response is "So freaking what?" The entire history he recites is that we cut the military and then pumped it up when needed. Put aside the ancient history and focus on the 20th Century: we ramped into military production in 1917 and then in 1941-2, with the latter coming in extreme duress. In both cases, unrestricted submarine war hurt domestic shipping, meaning boats were literally sunk off American shores. Look up how many ships were destroyed right off our coast. We had to black out the entire coast to prevent ships from being lit up against the background. Numbers? 175 ships on the east coast, 46 on the Gulf coast and 27 on the west coast.

If there's an actual war that requires military build-up, we'll do it.

A 1942 Life magazine article describes the construction of a tank factory by Ford. They took apart a captured German tank and, according the article, knew then that we could outproduce Germany quickly. The tank was too well built, too much craft that took too much time and too many special parts. Ford built tanks using mass production. Same with airplanes: the B-25's rolled out the line at Willow Run in the longest and largest assembly line ever built. That plant was built from scratch.

Heck, the Pentagon, the largest building in the world when built, was thrown up in less than 18 months. And the guy who led that, Leslie Groves, then oversaw construction of 3 separate nuclear facilities and the production of the A-bomb in less than 3 years.

The idea we need to keep a huge military always churning is defeatist nonsense.

It seems that a number of changes over the period since the Revolution make useful historical comparisons difficult. How much has the expense of maintaining an army shifted, in wartime and peacetime, from soldiers' wages to research, construction and maintainence of weapons? What about the shift from sodiers as short-term hires/draftees to career professionals. It seems that the military has gradually changed over the period from a thing to be assembled when it is time to fight a war to an ongoing operation. It seems difficult to draw causation among this change, technological advance and political history.