Changing American Perceptions of its Military?

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The military actually has been doing this. Rumsfeld was all about doing more with fewer people.

It's more than just a matter of training, though. Lots of people who will make a fine infantryman will never become a competent SEAL no matter how much training they get.

It won't necessarily make the military cheaper, either - it will just reduce the number of people involved.

Defense money saved will probably be just squandered on programs that no one really benefits from. The government is not good at money management and never will be.
What's left of the military will be screwed and generally ineffective when the balloon goes again.
Peacetime cuts adversely effects equipment, training, and even morale.

More military and less government is my vote

Probably because the US private sector grew so much since 1960.

Assuming what you say about Washington is true, my sense is that our leaders are afraid what will happen if we are more inward looking. Thomas Friedman is fond of saying the world would be worse off with a weak U.S. I don't know if that is true or not. I do know that a strong U.S. is great for egos. Once you get drunk on the brew of power, you will do anything to keep it. It is just as strong as any other drug. And there are people in Washington who love determining the world's fate.

I notice that many of those people are foreigners who show up in the US and get important posts at Foggy Bottom or in the military industrial complex... like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski... they go the US to try to rule the world and perhaps make sure that their pet enemies are targeted (Brzezinski and Russia comes to mind).

too funny

The founding fathers believed in militias and a small standing army to gather them in the defense of the federation. The American Empire is just an excuse to trample on our liberties and spend our money these days.

That is true. The Founders considered a standing army as a prelude to either tyranny or to economic ruination.

However in their day, the oceans were a barrier against any kind of conquering force from either Europe or Asia. Even during the Civil war, Lincoln claimed that no foreign power could destroy the United States. Only Americans could destroy the United States.
He was right, in his time. Even as late as the time of the second world war, there was no foreign army that could conquer the U.S. It was just too big and the people would not submit to a foreign conquerer. If a foreign power attempt to conquer the U.S. at that time the result would have been a Vietnam type war on steroids which they could not possible win. And I believe the same is still true today.

The biggest threat is destruction by nuclear weapons or by biological weapons. That could finish us off. However we can nuke any place that would attempt such a thing. So we don't need troops every which where. All we need to do is convince our adversaries whoever they may be that if they even try it we will wipe them out, which we can do. Of course with a lot of collateral damage but who cares about foreign lives anyway. I don't. The U.S. does not need an army everywhere. All we need is to be a Doomsday Machine. That would cost a great deal less.

ruveyn

We can always use that money that goes to the military-complex on research for a vast defense system that wouldn't even allow a nuclear bomb to get through. The fear of mutual destruction has pretty much tamed most countries though, and it's why we haven't had a real war of the proportions we had seen in the World Wars.

Biological weapons on the other-hand are very tricky. I think the best solution would to have hundreds of scientists trained in deconstructing and reverse engineering viruses made for warfare. This is risky and dangerous of course, but such training is crucial not only for biological warfare, but also for global pandemics. Ideally, all training should be done in a secluded and quarantined area, with very strict regulations.

It is perfectly possible to be defensive without entering other countries. Even more likely is that by not entering these countries we're much less of targets.

our military is more top-heavy [of entrenched bureaucracy and duplicative officer ranks] than most of the world's military orgs. there is absolutely no reason why there must be EIGHT different kinds of sergeant! canada makes do with ONE. why do we need an entire multiservice corps of [6 grades of] warrant officers? we got along fine without the lions' share of them before WW2. why must there be 5 separate services with their own duplicative command chains and uniforms? why can't we adopt the standard practice of canada and most other military orgs by consolidating all services under one command chain? our military is full of opportunities for cost-saving.

Seconded. Less soldiers and more secret agents.

A very interesting point and well worth pondering. But we still need a credible Doomsday threat to deter potential foes.

Of course, that would not work with the Jihadim. They really want to die so they can get it on with their 72 dark eyed virgins with their divinely guaranteed eternal hard-ons. Since suicide except as a means of kill the Kafirs is not permitted these folks will keep on trying.

ruveyn

It seems not to function. If they had been successfully peacekeeping, why have the USA been in more then 50% of the 20 centuries years been involved in wars?



I thought, defending the own homeland is what being defensive was about?

Since World War II, the U.S has had a policy of "preventative" warfare.

You're overlooking something else which is perceived as a threat to the U.S., and one which is a prime motivator for the expansionist intervention into the affairs of other countries-- wanting for resources. Simply put, a nation the size of the United States, with the expectation of such a high standard of living, is going to have some serious resource issues. Some are renewable-- but the ones which aren't, like oil, pose a challenge to our economic stability and independence.

Now, there are generally three ways of approaching the issue. Number one, you can improvise and innovate, and learn how to live without it. If you don't have access to oil, for example, you can try to develop a new source of energy which isn't going to have the same accessibility problems. Of course, that's problematic, because there's already an infrastructure in place that heavily favors oil, and has a very powerful incentive to stifle such progress. Number two, you can go outside the U.S. and obtain what you want peacefully, through trade. That's a good option if it's available, but it doesn't work everywhere. So that's when we resort to option number three: taking what we want by force.

I would argue that our foreign policy position in the past few decades has at its core been much more about perpetual resource procurement than ideological disputes or homeland defense from enemies of the state. Every place we go, our leaders envision us making inroads into a sector of the world economy which we haven't tapped. War makes the defense contractors rich, and once we've established an atmosphere which is more conducive to our commercial interests, all sorts of other contractors and businesses can start turning a profit too.