[rayiner]

It seems unrealistic because the US has such overwhelming firepower. But historically, there have been wars and losing wars has historically been very detrimental to the well being of the citizenry. There is no reason to believe that we've reached some sort of point where war is no longer likely.

[J_]

The likelihood of total war between any of the great powers is nil because of nuclear deterrent. So why are we wasting trillions of dollars on conventional weapons against enemies that we will never fight? Oh because they'll be sold to non-nuclear powers where there MIGHT be conflict (i.e. Iran)? What a joke. That's a 9 billion dollar defense budget against 682 billion.

The simple truth is that the military-industrial complex is just a giant leech on our economy that has somehow convinced Americans (and other nations) that it's necessary to buy these multi-billion dollar systems because of all the fear-mongering bullshit that's spewed. Roosevelt's line about the only thing we have to fear is fear itself is apt here.

The amount of waste in our system is disgusting. If we had a smart electorate, our defense budget would be much, much smaller.