> This is a very highly political volatile situation waiting to blow up in a Presidents face.

You have to look at this in the overall picture of military size and spending though as well. Since WWII, with a few blips, the size of our armed forces (in the US) has been slowly decreasing, while military spending has been increasing at a relatively steady rate (outside of actual war-time expenses) regardless of who is in office.

But the spending isn't equal. It is going up in critical areas, including tactical aircraft at an exponential rate. At current projections unless something changes, in 2054, the entire defence budget will be enough to buy one tactical aircraft. Norman Augustine pointed that out in the mid-1980's, but we are still on track.

So here's what I see, and it is genuinely scary:

I see a shrinking US military armed with ever more-effective force-multiplying weapons (but insufficient people) trying very hard to maintain control over key strategic areas they see in the world, while the weapons are getting stronger and the human side is getting weaker. There is no way this will continue for very long. It will stir up more and more justified resentment in the world which will face a country less and less prepared to deal with it.

All of this is a proxy for having real strength in arms.

Or maybe there will be a world war to reset the cycle, kill off tons of uppity civilians and let those that can reap astounding profits and lock down more control over the experience of the civilization we have...

Do you really think, after our experience in Iraq, that we could win a world war? Our armed forces have been moving slowly away from a world-war type force since WWII. Fighting a world war requires having lots and lots of boots on the ground and vast quantities of manpower. A few robots can't match that.

Winning schminning....

War is never about winning anything. It is about profiteering off death and destruction and paying sacrificial homage to the god of chaos to whom all politicians worship.

But if you look at it that way, our military-industrial complex has become so efficient at waging war as a means to profiteering, that all we need are very tiny wars we can continue to wage forever. In fact this is what is happening.

But this continues to bolster my point, which is that our military is less and less prepared to fight a major war. The scary thing is that if a major conflict comes, we are totally unprepared and that's not fixable without rethinking the basics of military equipment and such.

Of course this is possible to turn around. The Byzantines managed to do so by cutting military spending during a series of wars they were losing. I think we need to follow their lead but that has tremendous implications on issues like gun control.