In order to cut U.S. defense spending dramatically would you be willing to...

Well you'll be glad to know that we are actually moving towards that. We've created brand new "specialized" units that didn't exist before and we've also upped the standard for Infantry with the goal of leading to a more elite and specialized force. We are transitioning from the days of "if you have a trigger finger and not deemed medically retarded the infantry will take you".

The reason our military has to be so large isn't exclusive to our new nation building premise but also includes our ability to hit you real hard immediately anywhere at the drop of a dime. A lot of folks don't realize just how many bases America has all over the place. We have bases EVERYWHERE with equipment and troops enough to give anybody a proverbial bloody nose until the rest of us show up to finish you off. And we also maintain the ability to fight 2 full blown conventional wars on 2 fronts simultaneously. Think WWII in modern era, so basically we need to maintain the ability to fight and defeat both Russia and China at the same time. Yes America would crush both of those nations, people can try to look at wikipedia or something and make an argument but whatever, America would crush them both. But being able to do so at the same time at any given moment requires a lot of resources and troops and equipment. Thats just how we operate as a nation. These world power nations are no pushovers by any means and I personally don't want to ever have to engage in a full scale war with either of them, especially seeing how it'll literally be me who goes...first. But with a military mentality like we have we require massive amounts of stuff for a standing military 24/7.

Occupying isn't just about nation building, it's about holding strategic locations and resources as well. Our air power is unmatched, but we can't do it all, sometimes we need a bunch of regular grunts to just occupy an area and keep it in US hands while we keep pushing forward. Our military during this never ending war on terror isn't much larger than it "should" be, it's just that we decided to use the normal "hold this town with it's natural resource deposits so the enemy can't retake it" people and delegate them to "go set up a base in this Iraq village and sit there for 10 years and give them beans and stuff and play police officer".

The size is fine plus or minus a few thousand, it's what we actually use the force for that is the problem.

 

Yeah a war with any major world power would go nuclear but that doesn't stop each of us from having massive conventional military forces. It's all one big 8D chess game played on blueprints. Russia is the worlds number one producer of state of the art anti aircraft weaponry specifically designed to shoot down American air power and they sell it all over the world. The reality is that Russia is a 3rd world nation in some aspects but they aren't exactly a 3rd world nation. If they wanted to they have the ability to launch enough ICBM's at us to get a few of them to land here at key targets. They have enough nukes to blow up the entire planet, so does China, and so does the US. But we all still maintain our individual chess game style conventional war machines on paper Cold War style.

We tried this mentality in the 50s and it didn't work so well. After WWII we figured nukes were the future so we just concentrated most of our military on nukes of various sizes and types but then Korea happened and we realized we need an actual military still as well. There is a mentality of MAD that nobody of any actual might will fight normally because we'd all just blow each other to pieces with nukes but that isn't as absolute as we think. Honestly we just don't know. We could have blown Korea up but we didn't, even though McArthur wanted to. Would a war with Russia or China quickly turn into nuclear punches or would either or them realize that losing to America is better than nuking America and having America remove them from the map? Or would America even counter-nuke them off the map seeing how much worldwide destruction that would cause?

I do agree with the European concept though. I am not in favor of America protecting Europe from Russia and letting NATO get away with paying pennies while we dump billions into their defenses. But at the same time The UK and France have nukes and so does Israel if they cared enough so they could just start lobbing nukes at Russia if they decided to invade Europe. Pretty much both Europe and America's military complexes involve primarily with dealing with Russia and China's crap on a conventional scale.

Perhaps I am just way too optimistic but I just don't personally foresee a nuclear war being as likely as others do which is why I feel the need for powerful conventional armies. The bombs we have nowadays are horrifying, they aren't the atom bomb firecrackers we dropped on Japan in 1945, I just don't think anybody is willing to open that pandoras box. Even in a full scale war with either Russia or China if nukes started getting launched then that's basically the end of the world. As crazy as each of the 3 of us think we each are I don't think any of us is willing to make humanity go extinct over a conflict, I feel like we'd slug it out conventionally. But then again I'm just speculating, I have no damn idea.