What has not changed is the danger of a standing warfighting army in times of peace in terms of the dangers of overly empowering the executive to begin wars as described by James Madison.

As to arguments about what type of force is most competent in the shortest period of time, those are interesting but moot to this discussion. The US has never needed a rapidly deployable warfighting army. Ever. Not in WWI. Not in WWII. Not in Korea. Not in Vietnam. And most certainly not in the subsequent era of conflicts that we have dived into head first.

Likewise, we do not need a large warfighting army on the books to defend our shores from invasion. Consider the example of our invasion of France. It took us two years to stage the men and supplies and capabilty to simply push across the English Channel. When China or Russia begin a two year program of staging on Vancouver Island or Nova Scotia, give me a call. Until then these are false arguements about false threats.

We are trapped in an inertia of thinking rooted in the anomoly of 60+ years of having to have a warfighting army on the books to implement containment in Western Europe, and then a long string of post Cold War conflicts that various Presidents have been able to engage upon simply because such an army was available.

We engage the future best when we apply our historical lessons properly. Madison was right, and if he could see what has happened over the past 40 years he would be shocked that we allowed this to happen. The original George W (Washington) would be equally alarmed and dismayed.