We gear up now to make sure that never happens. The best way to win a war, is to make the idea of starting one seem absolutely unacceptable to anyone thinking of it.
Cutting our forces to the point it seems someone has a chance, is the only sure fire way to guarantee we’ll have to lose hundreds of thousands of our citizens. (if not millions)
Pre-WWII this world was a much larger place. We had time to react to war and gear up. We won’t have that ace in the hole this time.
If our fleet is not up to snuff (literally invincible) before war breaks out, we won’t have a fleet for the duration. We have very few ship building yards. They would be taken out in short order. Then what?
We use our fleet for a buffer to prevent that sort of thing.
Yes, we have other means to protect our assets, but a cruise missile or two and everything is up for grabs.
We’re not going to have months/years to get our troop numbers up to what we need, trained, armed, and ready to go.
We have come to the place where we think we are invincible. We are not.
Our Navy is less that 1/3rd what it was when Reagan left office, and there’s talk of cutting it more.
How are we supposed to keep the shipping lanes open with a skeleton crew?
We have come up with a war plan that rests on 11 or so carriers. What happens if we lost 1/3rd of those in the opening moments of global conflict?
We already operate at a one theater level of preparedness in the Army. That’s our defense strategy today, and there’s always double talk of cutting this or that to be more prepared.
When pirates were openly plying their trade in the Indian Ocean region, Bush and Obama held off putting an end to it. Then India and even China send ships to stop it.
Is that our future vision for the sea lanes, China stepping in to put down hot spots?
If so, there is something very wrong with this picture.
Reasonable. Even as I wrote my previous reply, I knew the world had changed with WWII and the atomic bomb, which is why we went to a standing army post-WW II.
Then with the cold war, and then the war on terror, we’ve been in a steady state of low-grade war.
Not an easy job for the President to lead us, a fat, lazy country, and a lazy, recalcitrant Congress.