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.

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.

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.