[Nah.
We bring troops home and both parties will support reducing our armed forces.
Does that make us stronger?
Along with that comes reductions in equipment, and readiness.
I don’t relish the idea of none of our active forces having served in combat before.
We need experienced men.]
Precisely. Pearl Harbor occurred because we were spending peanuts on defense, and the consequence was outdated equipment, a skeleton military and abysmal readiness levels. In the nuclear age, we need significant spending on defense, because the kind of advance to Baghdad we achieved in days - is open to any adversary with superior gear. And they won’t have our compunctions about quashing insurgencies the traditional way - with mass killings.