Yes. We have nuclear weapons, and a distinct advantage in drone / remote warfare technology.
You need some other options besides nuclear war and drones. And you need the personnel and delivery systems to make them work.
And we are not in a declared war.
WWII was our last declared war. We face asymetrical threats. OBL declared war on the US in 1996.
Along with the 1.4 million active duty you cite, we also have the 20,000 contractor Secretary Of State army in Iraq, the TSA, and other people we don't want to call military on various payrolls all over the place.
So how would you defend our diplomatic and NGO presence in Iraq? If you think that TSA is a quasi military force then how about police and other state and local law enforcement personnel? Or the FBI? Or the CIA? Or NSA?
So if we did have a shooting war, and we can send in drones or warplanes stationed in Missouri, why do we need a military geared to sending 300-400,000 troops somewhere for years at a time with no end result in mind?
We don't have 300,000 to 400,000 troops to send anywhere now. Our military has already been significantly cut over the past decade. We need to look at what the threats are and how to best combat them now and in the future.
We also need to ask such questions as to what our role in the world is in terms of strategic security interests. Do we need to keep the sea lanes open around the world? We have a navy now of 323,000 with less than 300 ships, down significantly from the days when I served in the 60s and 70s when we had a 600 ship navy.
You can rationalize all the cuts you want but there are irreducible limits that should not be passed. You cannot reconstitute a trained military force overnight. It could take a generation to replace a trained cadre of people given the sophistication of our weapons systems and the training needed. And it depends on a steady influx of people to move up thru the ranks gaining experience and training.
Reducing our armed forces to 500,000 is sheer insanity. It sends a powerful message to our enemies and invites adventurism that makes the world less secure.
The message to our enemies has already been delivered, by the use of the "Leading From Behind" policy and the other actions and inactions we have chosen. And the world is less secure. And we can't afford a large military today; it's not the 1960's anymore and we are not the richest nation in the world. We are doing to ourselves what we did to the Soviet Union in the 1980's.
Any future military action we get into will have to be wisely chosen, with a described end AND an actual national interest for us. We have put ourselves in a situation where we can't answer the phone every time somebody calls 911.
Maybe 500,000 is not the right number, but I was referring to permanent active duty personnel. We have to align our military strength to what we can do, not what we used to be able to do.