Wars are pretty much old hat
It is not necessary to go into a big shooting war when you can take a country over by trade, social and political means
there are "little" wars being fought all the time which are just little squabbles requiring a police force not a army
Japan has only had a defense force for the last 50 odd years
Plus if we had "the Bomb" and a few nuclear weapons a fleet of drones what else do we actually need
The USA lost over 2000 planes during the Vietnam war so how many un-flyable F35s have we got ordered
Submarines that don't float
Helicopters that fall out of the sky
Planes which do not work
An army which has become so politically correct it's doubtful if they could agree to shoot anyone
So we do spend a lot on defense but what does it actually get us ---- not enough to defend the country
As to the USA dropping us
1/ they look after themselves first
2/ if we were twice as strong economically we would be respected a lot more
3/ They really do not have many close friends do they?
But I do agree that as long as we have the incompetent fools in Canberra in the form of both current big parties we would be fools to give them more money to spend/waste
