The US military budget is probably not too high for the existing requirements of the US.
The US is obligated, by treaty and policy, to provide mutual defense to most of the world. The US military has additional moral obligations to minimize civilian casualties, as well as political obligations to minimize both time expenditure and friendly casualties.
These requirements are historically unprecedented and contributes significantly to overall cost. In the 1990's, the US and NATO managed to put an end to ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia through direct military action without incurring any significant casualties. In 1991, the UN-mandated Persian Gulf War incurred so few friendly casualties, it was statistically safer for coalition troops to serve in the Persian Gulf than to stay at home simply because the added casualties from combat were less than the reduced casualties from car accidents.
In any case, there's a much better way of overlapping the two: require 2-4 years of national service and then designate the basic income guarantee as a veterans' benefit. (It wouldn't have to be military as there would be other options for conscientious objectors). This would increase military manpower, make it less likely to go to war unnecessarily, reduce youth unemployment, provide near-universal job training to reduce unemployment in the long run, solve the college debt problem via the GI Bill, and reduce social stratification by throwing everyone into the same situation early in life. And if you don't want to do it, then you don't get basic income and you don't get to vote. But that would never happen.
"The US is obligated, by treaty and policy, to provide mutual defense to most of the world."
The parties at the other end of those mutual obligations manage to do so at way lower (in absolute, but also in relative terms) budgets. The obligation is not "the USA will save you", but "we will help each other", and that, somehow, has become "the USA will produce an extraordinary amount of weaponry and keep an enormous military force; in exchange, we keep pretending that the US dollar is a sound investment".
Also, nitpicking: I don't think it is most of the world, as it excludes, at the least, almost the entire former USSR, China, and Pakistan.
The Monroe Doctrine requires the US to protect the Americas as a whole from foreign incursion. The US is obligated by treaty or law to defend Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, and practically all of Europe (NATO extends as far as parts of the former Soviet Union). Not all of these defensive arrangements are fully mutual, either in practice (the US has troops stationed to defend Germany but not vice-versa) or indeed in law (Japan has no obligations to the United States).
This is also far from the sole requirement that keeps costs up. Probably the more important factor is the incredible amount of cost expended to minimize friendly casualties. It's not enough to simply win a war, we have to win it very quickly and with very few casualties. China, as a counterexample, has no political need to make sure the war is wrapped up before the next election, nor any PR requirement to keep their own casualties exceptionally low. Instead, they can control their own media and--thanks to the one child policy--practically have a surplus of young men.
"Not all of these defensive arrangements are fully mutual, either in practice (the US has troops stationed to defend Germany but not vice-versa)"
For NATO, that's purely the way it gets executed. The only thing special about the USA in http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm is that it is the place where the treaty is kept. Otherwise, the treaty is symmetrical. There are/were NATO (not only US, but also from other countries; for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Air_Base_Geilenkirchen#Ope... shows there still are 12 other NATO forces in Germany) troops in Germany and not in the USA because that was the most likely front of World War 3.
The USA made tremendous efforts to help Europe in world war 2 and the Cold War, but it could have slowly decreased its effort once the western economies recovered, if it wanted to.
"It was understood, however, that Japan could not come to the defense of the United States because it was constitutionally forbidden to send armed forces overseas."
Given that this was forced on Japan by the USA and given the huge geopolitical influence he USA has, I would think they could have changed it, too.
The USA may have laws or morals that make it feel obliged to do more, but that are things it does to itself. I remain that the situation is (utterly simplifying and ignoring lots of facets):
- the USA polices the world, but cannot really afford to do so.
- large parts of the rest of the world keep financing the USA by ignoring that 'cannot afford' part. That keeps the dollar as a fairly strong currency.
And yes, the cost of surgical strikes can be way higher than that of a "win this war, whatever it takes" approach.
You are just lifting the political premise of Heinlien's Starship Troopers. I am not sure that this would make a society less likely to go to war, because the society itself will become more obsessed with the military and is more likely to look for things that look great in military terms, like conquests.
Lots of real world countries have or had national service requirements. Hopefully it would make war less likely because it would more equally distribute the human costs of war. You wouldn't have these chickenhawks who never served themselves.
I rather like the idea - but then I am a big fan of Heinlein's _Starship Troopers_ so I suppose I would like it.
I don't dispute your major points. However, I would say that your claim that "the US and NATO managed to put an end to ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia" is a bit lacking in nuance.
Having spent a bit of time in Serbia after the Kosovan war, I saw little evidence that NATO reduced the amount of ethnic cleansing going on and a lot of evidence that NATO deliberately killed many civilians. The former Secretary-General of NATO, Lord Carrington, even claimed that the NATO bombing caused ethnic cleansing.
But this doesn't negate your main point and is a little off-topic - sorry about that - I just wanted to mention that not everyone thinks the NATO action in former Yugoslavia was a good thing.
Not Steve Jobs nor Bill Gates have been to military service, this I think allowed them to develop their companies, what will happen in case of mandatory service?
I don't promote compulsory military service, but what would prevent someone from being an entrepreneur after finishing their military service?
Consider that many developed nations have compulsory military service (Finland, Norway, South Korea, Singapore, Israel, Switzerland, etc.), and yet people still manage to start new companies there.
On the other hand, Poland recently abandoned it's compulsory military service.
If the service is obligatory for all, it means you're taking a million of people at the peak of their intellectual capabilities, and force them to do mundane tasks for half a year, or a year. Also, some people will fake their medical records to get out of this.
If it's not obligatory for students (like it was in Poland), people will find some bullshit universities to skip the service. And the vision of being force to essentially be imprisoned for a year if you get thrown out of university, will not be fun for anyone. This is how it looked like in Poland.
But - if I'm not mistaken - what made Poland change the law were those factors:
- it's costly. you need to mantain 1% of population fed, clothed and so on for a year or so. plus you need to maintain a huge infrastructure for this. that alone would cost U.S. how much - $15k * 4M = 60 billion? a year?
And that doesn't include the fact that those same people would otherwise bring in much more profit to the society - say $40k/year on average. So the hidden cost here goes another 160 billion of a hidden cost in case of U.S.
- it's inefficient. the wars are not won by who has more manpower anymore. they are won by the ones who have better technology, intelligence and logistics. So that 4 million army would be blown away by 100 thousand army of better trained and better equipped soldiers.
Finally - look at the countries you mentioned. They aren't exactly known for their entrepreneurial spirit, are they?
It's no more costly than a guaranteed basic income, is it?
If you reduce national service age and compulsory education age to 16, then national service would take place between ages 16 and 20. Beginning university at 20 after four years of life experience would probably be more beneficial than detrimental, and you've subsidized the training of lots of skilled workers in the process.
The US is obligated, by treaty and policy, to provide mutual defense to most of the world. The US military has additional moral obligations to minimize civilian casualties, as well as political obligations to minimize both time expenditure and friendly casualties.
These requirements are historically unprecedented and contributes significantly to overall cost. In the 1990's, the US and NATO managed to put an end to ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia through direct military action without incurring any significant casualties. In 1991, the UN-mandated Persian Gulf War incurred so few friendly casualties, it was statistically safer for coalition troops to serve in the Persian Gulf than to stay at home simply because the added casualties from combat were less than the reduced casualties from car accidents.
In any case, there's a much better way of overlapping the two: require 2-4 years of national service and then designate the basic income guarantee as a veterans' benefit. (It wouldn't have to be military as there would be other options for conscientious objectors). This would increase military manpower, make it less likely to go to war unnecessarily, reduce youth unemployment, provide near-universal job training to reduce unemployment in the long run, solve the college debt problem via the GI Bill, and reduce social stratification by throwing everyone into the same situation early in life. And if you don't want to do it, then you don't get basic income and you don't get to vote. But that would never happen.