[nradov]

We did scale back. Military spending was cut back in real (inflation adjusted) terms at the end of the Cold War, and bottomed out as a percentage of GDP in 2000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_dividend

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/mili...

After 2001, military spending went way up of to fund the Global War on Terror. Most of that was a total waste and failure. Now the GWOT is essentially over and funding priorities have shifted to containing expansionist regimes in China and Russia (and to a lesser degree Iran) as part of Cold War 2. It is certainly an option to adopt an isolationist stance and cut the military-industrial complex down to the minimum size necessary to defend the homeland, but you might not enjoy the results of letting hostile foreign powers dominate the rest of the globe.

[panick21_]

The real spending went down a tiny amount despite the largest army of the world was no longer in existence and there was no credible threat what so ever.

I always love how people fall for the false military budgets, the war cost, the veteran health, the nuclear cost and a lot of other associated cost that is conveniently hid outside of the 'military budget' despite it very clearly should be in the same bucket.

> It is certainly an option to adopt an isolationist stance and cut the military-industrial complex down

Ah the old 'anybody that doesn't believe absurd amount of military spending is an isolationist trope'. Never stops getting old that one.

[nradov]

How much should we cut the military budget? Please give a specific number and show your work.

We all understand that there is a huge amount of waste. But in practice it seems to be difficult to cut that waste without losing essential capabilities.

[spiralx]

It's redundancy, not waste, in the majority of cases. Look at what's happened to the Russian army to see what happens when there's no redundancy built-in to your logistics and supply chain, redundancy is essential to the capability of US military might.