You'll get no argument from me that we spend too much on social programs. But the rest of your arguments imply the world and what drives its major powers hasn't shifted since the Cold War. During the Cold War, our biggest military rivals were driven by political ideology. The Soviet Union was committed to Communism and the goal of spreading Communism throughout the world. But we won that war. Communism failed. Its last surviving powers don't even really believe in it any more. Take a look at Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou etc, if you need evidence that China has ceded Communist ideology to Capitalist reality. China still wants to dominate the world, but the goal is economic domination, not ideological. China absolutely relies on its economic ties to Japan, the US and the EU to fuel its status as a world power. It cannot survive without the economic fuel provided by trade with those entities. Therefore, the threat that China will launch nukes toward any of those powers is about as likely as the threat that we will preemptively launch a nuke at China. So our ABM system must be robust enough to handle a nuclear threat with a lot less to lose. North Korea leaps to mind. You can be certain we have a very good grip on North Korea's intercontinental nuclear capability. And our ABM system based in Alaska is in a prime position to handle the threat.
We have reduced our strategic nuclear forces in part to comply with our obligations to various treaties, but also because we no longer need the capability to either counter a massive first strike by the Soviet Union, or overwhelm the defenses of a nation we plan on hitting first. It costs billions to keep those systems in a state of constant readiness that is no longer necessary in the scale it once was.
We no longer have a TAC, SAC and MAC, but that doesn't imply we lost the capability each of those commands represent. Instead, we dumped a lot of extra bureaucracy that did absolutely nothing to improve our combat capability or readiness.
"We had massive R&D programs and procurement in the early 1960s, even before Vietnam. Today, with the threats GREATER than what JFK faced (from multiple sources--JFK only had the Ruskies to worry about), George Bush is only spending 17 cents of every dollar on Defense."
Yet, with all of Kennedy's funding, we still couldn't gain the initiative in Vietnam. Obviously, there were many other factors involved there, but the point is, spending money does not equal a potent military. Iraq used to have the fourth largest military on the planet. Saddam starved his people to fund it. Look where it got them. The fact that George Bush is spending only 17 cents of every dollar on defense only highlights what we both agree on, and that is we are spending too much on social programs. But the fact that our military has accomplished historically unprecedented achievements in both Afghanistan and Iraq is proof that our military capabilities, planning and know how, are as good or better than they ever have been.
The shi'ite has not hit the fan yet, so I can't agree that our military is sufficient--I see a much greater threat than what our capability is to deter it.
I maintain that 17 cents on the dollar for the Defense Department (and declining) and 66 cents on the dollar for socialism (and rising dramatically), along with the rise in threats against us, is dereliction of duty by Congress and Bush and by Scumbag and Bush 41.