What size should our military really be for this world?  I was reading in the news a couple days ago of Obama's goal of taking the army down from 520k troops to 440k.  If I remember correctly, under Reagan the military was at about 2.2 million in manpower.

How many combat aircraft, tanks, ships are truly needed?  

I am not factoring the screwed up US budget into the equation.

Enough ships and sailors to keep cruises at 6 months.

The optimal size would be to develop a foreign policy to take care of the security of the US instead of a policy to fight wars for other countries and to be the world's policeman.

Once that policy is developed then that will dictate the optimal size for the US military.

Enough to fight a war on four fronts while still being capable of defending the homeland if necessary.

Enough to secure our borders.

687 Ship Navy -   many of them battleships

The entire country enlisted.

Fuck.

No.

.mil has enough mouth breathers as it is.

As many as the current manning documents call for, in the grades called for.

150,000 warheads, of at least 100kt yield each.

Every man, woman, and child capable of bearing arms.

'Murica.

87 Brigades

I was going to say something about OP forgetting infantry but then I realized that it would be inappropriate. Referring to our trigger pullers as infantrymen would be unfair to our future transgendered soldiers. Lets call them infantrypeople from now on.

Given that China has nearly 4 million troops between their active and reserve forces....I'm thinking we should have 5 million.

For the Army, roughly twenty divisions on the active side. With each state providing another division in the National Guard. And each state providing 2-3 brigades in the Reserves.

For the Marines around 250,000 on active duty with a comparable number in reserve components.

I can't say about the Navy or Air Force.

Think cannon fodder.  Or just move all the welfare scum to Iraq/Afghanistan as a condition of keeping their benefits.  It'll be cheaper than occupying and ISIS won't make much progress because their rims get stolen every night.

Enough to enforce US interests worldwide. By sea, air, and land. Numbers are only part of that equation though.

Truly needed for...

Maintaining security of the global trade routes in the Med/Suez, Horn of Africa, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Strait of Malacca, South China Sea, Panama Canal?

We need a substantial Naval presence with the ability to keep a carrier battle group in the main oceans, with others undergoing overhaul, and others preparing for deployment off the coasts.  We're barely getting that done now, and have to rely on strategic patrolling of CVN's with certain response times to crisis areas.

You also need SOF to conduct preemptive operations that can hopefully thwart escalation of violence, then expeditionary units fully trained and capable of exporting blitzkrieg to make an example out of misbehaving despots in the regions near trade routes, when they get out of line.  We need that capability in the Pacific Rim, Persian Gulf, and African coasts, while being able to inter-operate with allies in the various Theater Commands.  We need to shift our EURCOM Center of Gravity from Germany to Poland, the Baltics, and the Balkans.

That is what the US Military has inherited.  The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans defend the Nation against actual invasion.  Border control should be a military function as it is in most other nations, but National planners count on fresh immigrants for work and demographic infusion of youth to help support our retirement structure.

Why?

Are you going to invade China or do you expect China to invade the US?

What plausible scenario would you have the American military taking on the full force of the Chinese military?

Large enough that we can invade, occupy, and subdue a least one peer nation and it's military while still maintaining active duty in the US as reserves and without having to activate reserve or NG units  while still maintaining enough navel assets to safeguard merchant shipping and military logistics against potential threats.

Airpower is a great tool but the real ass tightener the world over has always been the threat of  mechanized, well supplied, well trained, and well funded, and pissed off Soldiers and Marines rolling down your streets.

 

People seem to not realize that it takes years to build a military back up. It's not about just pushing a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds through 8 weeks of basic.  It takes years to train a pilot and it takes years to train a good NCO.If takes at least a year just to get a PVT past the Cherry stage.  You just can't take PFC Joe Snuffy and make him a SGT because you need leadership for new platoons and have good results.There's a reason we waited until '44 to go full tilt boogie on an invasion of Europe in WWII. North Africa, and Italy were more exercises in testing tactics, equipment, logistics, and bleeding the Germans of manpower and supplies than  they were about concrete strategic objectives to end the war.

I think 5 Mil is a bit much but I find it ironic people have expected the U.S. military to fight a two front war/occupation with 1/12th the manpower it had in 1944. Yeah we have all kind of force multipliers now we didn't have then but the fact still remains it requires more people to hold and occupy an area than it does to invade and take it in the first place.

85% of that is geared towards internal security, and they are regional powers at best with a uniform, local powers more often working for a corrupt general who is running his own narcotics, human trafficking, pirate goods, <insert illicit trade of choice> scheme.

They don't have force projection capability.  They have to focus on asymmetric strategies as not to upset their vulnerable position with being an export-based economy with no real diversification in national economic posture.

So you see Muslim surrogates destabilizing regions China is interested in, with varying degrees of success. Cyber war, fighting for territories with Japan, emigrating millions into Russia, and so forth.  There are no promising realities in the world for China at the end of the day, and this revolves around their population and demographic problems, which are global in nature.

Depends, how many terminators do we have?

Okay, I'm probably going to inflict a professional wince on the experts here, but this thought was nagging me after reading the above post. Apologies in advance for the abysmal ignorance betrayed herein, too.

Would it be possible to employ a reduced-scale carrier group on-station in smaller areas? Something like the LHA (sans well-deck, perhaps) with a composite air wing of STOL/STOVL and rotary, escorted by appropriate surface combatants (FFG or two and DDG? I have no idea), that would be sufficient to, say, help suppress piracy in the Malacca and Horn of Africa areas, without needing to tie up an entire carrier battle group? Especially if said jeep carrier, if I may be forgiven the old terminology, had a handful of something like F-35B (say 4), a short squadron of a navalized equivalent to the OV-10X (4-6), and a helicopter squadron with Seahawks for ASW, SAR, and such?
If Wikipedia is to be believed (read: I'm trying to take it with a grain of salt), LHA-6 and -7 will carry 12x MV-22, 6x F-35B, 4x CH-53K, 7x AH-1Z&UH-1Y, and 2x MH-60, or as more of a CVE, 20x F/A-35B and 2x SH-60. In theory, perhaps 8x of the MV-22, 10x of a STOL turboprop, 6x of the F-35B, and 4x of SH-60 could also work? I have no idea.
But that might allow a credible, local air wing capability along with reinforced Marine company or short battalion (the LHAs are, after all, designed for what? a battalion-ish?) for boarding and such to be deployed and standing-by in known areas of piracy but not where the all-up capability of a fleet carrier is required? Yet still having, in the F-35B detachment, a bit of varsity-level air capability.
Granted, I'm betting the flight deck really isn't very good compared to an angle-deck CVN for conventional-style fixed-wing operations, but going off the posted size and the proportions of the deck, it might be possible if done WW2-style. I mean, they're (LHA-6 and -7) going to be almost the same size as France's fleet carriers, or India's, so I'm not necessarily inclined to grant automatic credence to the "they're too small!" theory.

Again, I know this is betraying huge ignorance, but I had to wonder.
Please don't keel-haul me for piping up

I am not an expert but my understanding has always been that carriers of any type are really pretty vulnerable by themselves. I believe the other ships of the CAG are there to provide a buffer zone between hostiles and the carrier. Whether or not the carrier's mission is hunting african pirates they still might be a target for Russian harassment ;which has been on the rise.

Tree fiddy

Serious question: What "fronts" can we justifiably fight on that *aren't* defending the homeland?

Because the way we do business now is fucked up like a soup sandwich.

I would say 600 ship active Navy with another 600 that could be mobilized in 60 days.
AF I couldn't say but it's airlift capability needs to be at least doubled from present levels.
At least 20 active combat divisions in Army with a 1 million soldier reserve.
Marines should be number around 250,000.


And we should have at least 2,000 modern, tested nuclear warheads on missiles ready to launch and MIRV.

Id like to see about

18 Carrier battle groups
18 Amphibious groups
100 Nuke subs and 36 Ballistic Missile Subs
12 Marine Expeditionary Forces
18 Marine Expeditionary units

8 Army Armored divisions
8 Army Mechanized divisions
4 Army Airborne divisions
8 Army Light infantry divisions
Reserves
Each state would have 1 Armored Calvary Regiment ( old style before converting to stryker units) + 3 light infantry brigades

Air Force around 6000 aircraft  Bring back F22s into production.
3000 or so 500kiloton nukes 1/2 of them mobile.

Then a free M16 for all citizens :)

7".

Depends entirely on anticipated tasking.

 

I've heard that 800k personnel is the optimal number from a friend in the Army, but I don't know what he's basing that on.

The way we do business now is because of politics and a public without the will to do what needs to be done.  How do we justify other fronts?  Simple, does it serve our national interests?  If yes, then justified.  If no, then not justified.

That's why I threw in the bit about "escorted by appropriate surface combatants" right up front, yeah.

If we rebuilt the militia system into something actually "well regulated" instead of the neckbeard SKS of the month club we could probably cut the standing Army (and DHS) down a decent bit. The Navy is our main force projection and trade protection and they need the ability to retain gains so the Marines can stay under their umbrella. The USAF can join the Army, or just go home and let the Army do their job with dedicated units.The USCG can keep on keeping on, because some retard is always going to sail into a hurricane or tip over a cruise ship.

Why wouldn't the USCG just be absorbed by the Navy?

Mostly for dick waving purposes.  

Tasking is different enough and the almost entirely domestic aspect gives them some LE ability they wouldn't have as .mil. They can always be reinserted into the military and forward deployed in an emergency.