Part of the reason that Afghanistan and Iraq are "Small Wars" to the United States is that they are relatively small in comparison to our military capacity. If Iran were to invade either of those two countries, that would be a major military operation for them, and one that likely would not bode well for either side in the conflict. For the past thirty or more years, the U.S. has substituted military technology for casualties, and it has worked relatively well. (Compare American casualties in Afghanistan with Russian ones.) This has all been made possible by a tremendous budget which currently outstrips the next ten countries combined.

However, the national debt, which for the better half of a century has not been trivial, now looks to take a turn for the gargantuan. If, as has been recently predicted the national defict increases by nearly a trillion dollars each year for the next ten years, it is likely that the U.S. will have to cut deep into defense spending in order to return to solvency. (This is disregarding all of the other significant problems created by spending more than you have).

Rather than having a conversation about national budget policy per se my point is to raise the question of how a smaller military budget would influence the US's ability to intervene in Small Wars around the globe. I see several possibilities. The first is that the U.S. starts substituting bodies for technology, which is practical, but not politically feasible for now. The second is that the U.S. relies more heavily on allies. While that sounds appealing, most of our allies are not militarily capable to pick up enough slack. That is not to say their hearts are not in the right place, but frankly, they have come to rely on the American military and have cut a very deep 'peace dividend' which they cannot easily recover.

The final possibility is the traditional American reaction of Isolationism. Even cutting our military involvements overseas, America can still probably be safe(ish). While I personally do not agree with this strategy there have always been groups that argue for is, and there are still many important scholars who make just such an arguement, and spme variant of this COA seems most probable.

In the end, if the US's military capacity collapses under the weight of its financial profligacy, how do you thing that will change the wars she fights? Do you believe there will be more wars or fewer (between all countries)? Can groups like the UN and NATO survive without the US? What about less powerful countries? I am interested to know what this forum thinks.