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[Sheb]

Yeah, because the US has so many borders to defend.

[Tonjevic]

NATO potentially does. Look, I take your point -- especially since the main uses of western military force have been extra-extra-extra territorial since the disappearance of the main enemy (I boggle: it's amazing that countries can wage protracted wars on completely separate continents these days) -- but the realpolitik governing international relations privileges "national interests" almost to the degree that it privileges sovereignty. So when I say it's too late to respond by the time the enemy is crossing your borders, you may as well substitute "by the time the enemy is threatening your national interests," especially since, for the USA, these seem to include the defence of its allies. A major part, not forgetting the nuclear deterrent, of the national defence of many countries has been farmed out to the USA. Not just because they rely directly on US force, but because they buy a ton of weapons which it develops.

Well, maybe the national interest point is a little hyperbolic: the dissection of Ukraine is defended by various people because of the interests of Russian coethnics, and so on, but that doesn't make it correct. However, it is certainly interest and not principle which takes precedence at the negotiating table, and I would say that often hard power is what allows soft power to be actually used.

EDIT: I guess I was being dumb, European powers were totally waging long-ass wars throughout the colonial period. But still.

[Helgoland]

Yeah, because the US has so many borders to defend.

Considering that the US army is pretty much the only viable defense Western Europe has, yes, it has a lot of borders to defend. In the case of a war in Europe though the American industrial base wouldn't be threatened; the 'bootstrapping takes too long' applies much more to Germany, whose military capacities are pitiful to say the least.

But why are we even considering full-scale total war? Imagine a big war breaking out in the Middle East or Eastern Asia - the US needs to react, and fast, unless they decide that gasoline is not all that necessary and they didn't want those plastic toys anyway. In these cases you need a big army on standby, because reaction time is everything - as can currently be seen in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

[Neonivek]

Reading this thread makes me feel like I am watching Peacewalker.

Though quite a bit less nuanced because in Peacewalker the risk is always that the peace, while indeed tangible, had a few chinks in the armor... and by what means is it peace if it is only obtained through the longest Mexican standoff in existence? As well to what extent humans should be in the equation.

[Fniff]

Plus, no one is dumb enough to invade America as a non-guerrilla army, meaning a "national defense" for America is extremely unlikely.

[Tonjevic]

Not sure I understand you.

Are you suggesting that an invasion of the USA by guerrilla army could be done? I'm not super sure how non-indigenous guerrillas could even sustain the long burn required by that kind of warfare.

[DJ]

It's not like conventional forces would be relevant in an invasion of a nuclear power.

[Cthulhu]

I'm not seeing the obvious answer to this question yet.

Arms and armor contractors convince gubmit to commission giant killer robots.  This can be through lobbying, sometimes overtly corrupt like when Dick Cheney gave no-bid contracts to companies he had stake in.

Gubmit justifies this spending with conflicts

Conflict damages equipment.

Need new robots

Repeat.

No bigger business than war.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah a huge portion of the US defense budget is spent on developing, purchasing and maintaining absurd boondoggles that nobody really needs.  The F-35 alone will probably end up costing $1.5 trillion (and it isn't even particularly good at anything due to its attempts to do too many things at once).

e: As a point of comparison the Apollo program cost around $110 billion in today's money.

[Fniff]

Not sure I understand you.

Are you suggesting that an invasion of the USA by guerrilla army could be done? I'm not super sure how non-indigenous guerrillas could even sustain the long burn required by that kind of warfare.

I think he's saying that the best chance of success would be a guerilla war.

And that chance would be "extremely unlikely". I was thinking in terms of hit & run terrorist acts, really.

[i2amroy]

Yeah a huge portion of the US defense budget is spent on developing, purchasing and maintaining absurd boondoggles that nobody really needs.

Course that's also the same portion of the US Defense Budget that pays to develop cutting edge civilian-focused things like neurally-controlled cybernetics and portable nuclear reactors. If something has even the slightest potential to be used for combat then they pay for the research, which means a lot of things that aren't necessarily combat focused have main research grants based in military funding.

[Loud Whispers]

I also don't see why you couldn't bootstrap an army if needed. It's pretty much what the US did in WWI and WWII.

The US skipped most of their R&D by simply using the sum total of all British military science, were already preparing for war and had forewarning (even then almost losing their capability to lead a protracted naval campaign against Japan in WWII) and were a rising superpower whose supply lines were only rivaled by the Soviets and the Nazis.

Now, where military hardware is sophisticated and hard to produce, conjuring an army when many of your planes and ships take half a dozen years to produce after planning will simply mean you have no capabilities to fight should you ever find yourself in war.

[Drunken]

It is interesting that 'national interest' was brought up. This to me is a similarly confusing term. It is used to justify most of the conflicts that happen. The question is what is the nation in this context? It is clearly not the civilian population. After spending trillions and killing millions for 'national interests' you have 3% of US children homeless, many millions of people in prison, further millions depending on welfare and still not getting by, millions without access to healthcare and even tens of thousands without access to fresh water. It is like a third world country in some places. Is 'national interests' just another epic fail or does the word national in that refer to something less intuitive like 'Saudi Princes' or 'Defence Contractors'?

To address again the point of US defending Germany and Europe, the correct term is 'occupying'. There are no realistic or sane military strategists that are claiming any imminent threat of a European country being invaded, especially not by a power that Europe banded together could not deal with. It is almost as though the rhetoric is based on some super powerful hidden army, like maybe space aliens, that could attack out of nowhere at any time. What is the actual threat? Why doesn't the US end the occupation of Germany and prove once and for all that they are right when Germany is instantly invaded and conquered by... by Sweden I guess, or maybe Turkey? Maybe hordes of kilt wearing claymore wielding barbarians from a newly independent Scotland.

[Helgoland]

'Occupying'? If you're German, you've just successfully revealed as either a far-right or a far-left nutjob. If you're not German, I would like to ask you in the name of my whole country to revise your wording.
And interestingly you do not mention Russia as a possible threat, or indeed even as an impossible thread... Do I smell an agenda? I think so. Only a fool could have witnessed the past six months and conclude that our big neighbor inn the East is just a harmless as Luxemburg.
And your conflation of various unrelated prooblems the US is having does not strengthen your credibility either. What does the failed war on drugs with the surge in imprisonment have to do with the war in Iraq? Why do you think is a reactionary tax and welfare policy the result of war abroad?
Lastly, you gallantly ignore that the phrase 'national interest' has been abused to hell and back, but still retains its original meaning. National interest means the interest of the nation, the interest of all those people who constitute the US. It is in the US national interest - and in the national interest of most everyone else - to keep the international waterways open; it is in the national interest - not just in that of the US, but of all non-Chinese nations - that the US allies in Eastern Asia aren't dominated by China; it is in the national interest, every country's national interest, in short, to have a peaceful and prosperous world. And we shouldn't throw away a good tool for securing these true national interests just because a WASP moron invaded a country to cope with his daddy issues.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

US is occupying Germany Russia come save them plox