For some reason you are arguing about something I did not say in the first place. Of course we need a vibrant military. It must be the best in the world. And of course that military should be valued and respected.
My point (and that of central_va and pfflier as well) is that we do not need a HUGE military. A strong military, yes! A huge military, maybe not. That is the topic under debate.
Europe does not have to defend itself because we do it for them. Japan does not have to defend itself because we do it for them. Why is that OK?
As you noted, civilizations have fallen because of an inadequate military. But civilizations have also fallen because they felt the need to maintain huge, expensive armies - armies that just had to be everywhere at once. The Roman Empire is a good example of that.
Remember that Golden Oldie? How do you know that our armed forces are adequate for the future? They have been steadily reduced over time, primarily by Democrat administrations, until we no longer have the credible capability to fight two "peer adversaries" at once as we did before. China, Russia, Iran and others have ramped up their armed forces and their technologies at a very rapid pace and thanks to Obama's reductions and degradations (actively serving gays and girls for the infantry) our forces are further hobbled.
We have been focused on long-term limited war to hold off the immediate threats and have reduced our forces available for forward deployment, which serves to support allies and to reduce reaction time against the larger potential adversaries.
So in answer to your proposal, no, "faster, lighter forces" would not be adequate. And no, Europe or Japan or any of the rest of our allies could not survive long against Russia or China without us.
The Romans disappeared because they cheaped out and manned their perimeter with foreign forces ("barbarians") and when the Attila, the Visigoths and others showed up, they stole everything that wasn't nailed down and had their way, as it were.
We must be a major military power - or we have to accept rule by others.
I have expressed no opinion on the size or deployment of our military (army) in this thread yet.
I was a military brat that lived overseas until I was 16. After I joined the USAF, my roots were still in the old SAC days where we had 18X overkill capability and it worked as a deterrent. We had SAC and TAC bases world wide. Many bases were close to army garrisons and the combined arms kept the soviets and North Koreans in check.
I always thought it was a good idea to waste the bad guys there rather than here.