Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
An aggressor can prepare for war in few years and be ready for just a short period - this is much more efficient and affordable than to be ready all the time.
Depends on how well you want your people trained. Your solution may be more efficient but is highly unlikely to provide a particularly effective force.
I prefer another approach to keep such aggressors at bay. I'd prefer if we kept the know-how, developed equipment that can quickly be produced in great quantity, were alert with a moderate force and budget and ready to expand quickly. Meanwhile, arms control treaties can keep costs down for everyone at conventional war crisis hot spots and alliance frontiers.This is to some degree what some European countries do, albeit they fail at preparing seriously for the expansion phase.
Among other things...

How's that keeping frontiers calm working out in the Balkans...
The typical response to such a strategy proposal is the assertion that the world would run amok without the almighty U.S. military as policeman in the background.
Typical response from whom? Not likely to be the response of anyone on this board and certainly not from me. Need to watch those standing broad jumps at erroneous conclusions, they can lead to sprains. I would, however, note that my favorite cartoon from The Economist was the one about ten or so years ago where the little European was standing outside his house obviously on his way to work and talking to his wife as the house next door labeled Bosnia was burning and filled with carnage. He said to his wife "Ask the Americans what they intend doing about this."
Well, that's a very questionable assumption.
I agree, yours was a questionable assumption.
We've seen most ground combat power of the U.S. committed to a war and its other ground forces being quite occupied with other than conventional war preparations. I don't remember any country being invaded in the meantime (except Somalia by Ethiopia - which was obviously ENCOURAGED by the supposed policeman).
Okay, I agree -- what's your point?
This suggests that almost the entire ground forces of the U.S. were not necessary to deter any aggressions at the very least during the past years.
Or it could suggest the the total Armed forces of the US were highly successful in deterring aggression worldwide. Other than in Africa; we tend to leave Africa to all you former colony owners. How you folks doing down there?
Instead, they were used for the only major aggression in the past years.
Yep. Two 'aggressions,' Afghanistan in response to an attack on US soil and Iraq in response to many provocations over the years from the ME. Iraq wasn't totally innocent but they really just happened to be geographically central in the ME. That in response to 22 years of probes and attacks on US interests around the world from various state and non-state actors in the ME; we virtually ignored most of those to little avail, they just kept coming -- so our aggression was simply notification that we would accept no more and a belated response to extended provocations. I blame four previous Presidents for not properly responding but they did that in an effort to be nice guys. Futile effort. Little we do will ever satisfy most in the world. So yes, we got aggressive -- probably would not have had some student pilots not failed in getting to near stalls and run into buildings with their aluminum birds...

Nope, little we do will ever satisfy a good many in the world. Until they want something...
I guess this should be debated somewhere else
True. Nothing really to debate. We can differ.
as the French don't really seem to follow such a "prepared for everything" approach as their ground forces are not well-prepared for a major conventional war.
Not just the French, that's essentially true of all nations -- because that is the hardest and most expensive thing to prepare for ergo, it gets lip service or the minimum necessary to maintain the capacity to expand -- which is essentially what I suggested before you got all political. It's also what you suggested but you don't want to do anything else. Not sure you'll have that luxury. Apparently, the Bundeswehr isn't at all sure on that score either...