Politicians always say "we just didn't have enough money, give us more". However the definition of (institutional) insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a better result.
I am not talking about replacing the military with the free market. I am talking about shrinking it. Yes using democratic means. But good luck with that!
More people should read Smedley Butler.
In the Israel-Palestine situation he criticizes Democratic Israel far more than, say the Kingdom of Jordan. He criticizes Likud more than the PLO, and writes about the USA's imperialism in supporting a democratic state in the Middle East, while ignoring that during the 50s and 60s the KGB trained the PLO as part of explicit support to undermine Western-backed countries.
I correspond with Chomsky from time to time, and I think he is set in his ways. But I hardly think he would say our democracy has a good track record. You're thinking of Michio Kaku :)
But that doesn't address what we're discussing, it distracts from it.
Historically the concept of private fighting forces is not in any way radical.
I repeat, then, that of all kinds of troops, auxiliaries are the most dangerous; for the prince or republic that calls them to their assistance has no control or authority whatever over them, as that remains entirely with him who sends them. ... A prince or republic, then, should adopt any other course rather than bring auxiliaries into their state for its defence, especially when their reliance is wholly upon them; for any treaty or convention with the enemy, however hard the conditions, will be less hard to bear than the danger from auxiliaries. ... And in truth no more favourable opportunity could be presented to an ambitious prince or republic for seizing a city or province, than to be asked to send troops there to assist in its defence. And therefore any one whose ambition so far misleads him as to call in strangers to aid in his defence, or in an attack upon others, seeks to acquire that which he will not be able to hold, and which after acquiring will be easily taken from him.
We have 30x the number of bases than the rest of the nations of the world combined!
Our military budget is larger than the next 19 countries, many of whom are allies. Is this also a result of the US population's wishes and hitting the target goals? Perhaps if your paycheck had a list of where your taxes are going, like they do in France, you'd see just how much discretionary spending goes towards the military, and the taxpayers would send a message to Congress that enough is enough.
And the public army faces no market competition, so the Pentagon can't account for $8.7 trillion with a T dollars - yet our politicians always say that our army is always running out of funds and we need to increase our funding to support the national defense.