The size of the military, part 2

Matt's point about this is not lost on me at all:

If you're worried that more troops would be used for occupation duty in Teheran I think that's a smart worry, but the solution is to elect a president who won't invade Iran.

I agree. But only to an extent. Things like military size and culture change over much longer time intervals than one presidential administration, and if we want to secure a lastingly safe foreign policy, it would be better not to have to renew that commitment with every election. Personally I think the next president--especially if he or she is a Democrat--will have neither the desire nor the public support to embark upon an Iraq-like military fracas. But eventually the next president will be a former president, and somewhere along the line, we'll elect another reckless one. Perhaps she'll be elected at a time of peace like George W. Bush was and only reveal herself to be a belligerent leader after some sort of national crisis.

An eventuality like that could in theory be forestalled as early as 2009 if Obama--or whoever--decided to scale the military back (troops-wise, technology-wise, bureaucracy-wise). I doubt any of the contenders this year would be elected on such a platform, and I don't expect it to be a feasible policy idea in the near future, so of course I'll vote for the time being for a president who won't use our currently-too-large military for deadly wrong reasons. But I don't think this way of doing things is a particularly smart strategy for making and keeping ourselves a peaceful nation.