Drezner has a long article (pdf) on the diminishing returns from defense spending. It concludes:
The lesson from this analysis for U.S. grand strategy is that an overreliance on military preponderance is badly misguided. Again, it is not that military power is useless; it is that the law of diminishing marginal returns has kicked in. The United States would profit more from investing in nonmilitary power resources than in military assets. An excessive reliance on military might, to the exclusion of other dimensions of power, will yield negative returns. Without a revived economy and the associated global recognition of a renaissance in American economic power, the United States runs the risk of strategic insolvency. The United States needs to focus primarily on policies that will rejuvenate economic growth, accelerate job creation, and promote greater innovation and productivity. If the U.S. economy is perceived to be rebounding, then the biggest economic beneªts that have been hypothesized to flow from military predominance will be preserved. Furthermore, over the long run, economic growth is the strongest driver for growth in defense spending. Short-term cuts can lead to long-term growth in defense spending. As policymakers weigh the choice between maintaining a large military and taking steps toward economic revival, the results in this article point strongly toward deeper cuts in defense expenditures.
Steinglass adds:
[T]here was a time when states needed huge armies because they were interested in conquering each other to get bigger, suck in more tax revenue, and justify their rulers’ thirst for glory. Then after that there was a time when states represented rival ideologies that fought each other to justify the belief systems that held them in power with their own populations. Then the Berlin Wall fell, and now that’s over too. I just don’t see the rationale for preserving a military that can defeat any other militaries anywhere in the world twice at the same time in an age when states are no longer seeking to conquer other states for fun and profit, as they were during the struggle of liberal democracies against totalitarianism. The vague strategic rationales that float underneath our defence budgets don’t describe a vision of the world that makes any sense to me.
Me neither, which finally dawned on me after the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan. This issue is generational as well. Those born after the Cold War ended cannot understand why this vast continent, defended by two vast oceans, with woeful infrastructure and massive debt, should still be playing the global hegemon game. The Founders would be appalled. But the logic of this is so powerful that even 9/11 cannot refute it. In retrospect, au contraire. Our reaction proved its expiration date had long passed.
That’s why I can live with the sequester. It may be the only way to bypass the McCainiacs and military-industrial-complex and actually slash defense.
The Dish 