Bob,

You make some strong arguments, yet I suspect our foreign policy won't change and we'll continue to become entangled in wars that aren't in our interest and in wars of necessity. More than likely an Army will be needed to decisively win those wars.

As you well know the Army we stood up in response to WWI and WWII took considerable losses during the initial months of those conflicts due to incompetence. The Army was not well funded, so the existing the Army was not well trained, and the conscripts had no experience. My counter argument is there are advantages to having a standing professional Army for the reason listed above, and that argument is even stronger now due to how technically sophisticated the Army is. You can't simply bring a much kids in off the street and train them how to fight (the way we fight) in three months anymore. I'm not sure about this, but I suspect the ability to deploy quickly with a standing Army also reduces risk (exploit a window of opportunity), that option will be removed from the table if we pursue your course of action. Maybe for good reasons, maybe not.

The Cold War was very much a real conflict that could have going hot at anytime, so the reason we kept a standing Army was rational. Your argument seems to be that since the end of the Cold War should we have maintained a large standing Army. What would have happened if we didn't?

Interesting argument, but one that in my opinion is full of risks that need to be weighed carefully.