"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
- G Orwell
I think this sums it up pretty well. The world is a harsh and dangerous place, we need those people who are willing to give up their time and lives for us to go about what we do.
The spending, though I admit it is pretty astronomically high and should be at least half, is required due the the huge amount of threats your country (I am from New Zealand) faces and the many enemies that it has built up (admittedly through the use of that military).
The technology being used is increasingly costly due to it's developmental nature, more so now than ever combat is revolving around information! Drones, hacking and electronic warfare is sophisticated and will continue to grow so much money will need to be spent to keep up with this.
Highly unlikely, but still possible, is the threat of war with the PRC, DPRK or Iran. These are potential military threats that will take much firepower and resources to combat, with the U.S still taking it's roll of the 'world police' I cannot see any time soon a disarmament of you're forces.
Since 1945 the United States of America has been in constant conflict with multiple nations, from the Cold War when the threat of the Soviet Block and the Socialist Asian countries taking hostile action, hot zones in the Middle East, Africa and South America.
<->
The pace of combat is at an all mighty pace, the military build up that has been rolling on for almost 65 years is one that cannot simply be stopped at a whim! It will take at least another 40-50 years to scale down the size of your armed forces, their support services such as catering and maintenance; removal of service personal, weapons, armor, aircraft, naval fleets and the numerous military bases located overseas.
Even if you're nation decides to downgrade it's military it will not be on a large scale, the bases featured over the earth are there for a reason! Most are close to strategic economic points such as oil pipelines and refineries, strategic posts such as the panama canal, DMZ between the ROK and DPRK and zones that resupply its carrier task force (which will if anything be boosted to combat the Chinese building up their fleet).
after writing all of that I realized I am defending the armies need to exist, not that hate towards it (sorry)p
Summary:
There are to many threats in the world that face America to just scale back the military spending, you have been on a spending roll against there threats since 1941 and it will take a while to stop. As long as you enforce you're roll as the 'world police' you will have to keep a large force otherwise you will not be taken seriously and China will just push you over.
(tl; dr):
To many haterz against you, need d-fence, spending for ages cannot stop on a dime, do not want to let China and other countries 2 be the world police.
Alan S.
