# The War is Over - No Country Needs a Military Presence Anymore **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 9, 2022, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482 "2022-01-09T16:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/21 "2022-01-10T18:57:09Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > Having thousands of bored trained killers running around is going to cause trouble unless you pour a lot of resources into mental health services. That is probably why we never allow anyone who is former military to ever go back to civilian life. I mean, what would we do with all those trained killers in polite society? But we don’t let them out of their cages, so it’s all good… 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/22 "2022-01-10T19:54:01Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > I suppose you could fold the Army Corps of Engineers into the already vast Dept of Agriculture, since that’s whose interest they mainly serve in the US west. As it gets drier out there, expect to see more of them. It’s already predominantly acting as the Federal government’s large-scale engineering arm, with HUGE civilian workforces and projects undertaken under its aegis. Flood control is a huge endeavor that they undertake all over the country, for example. They also do a lot of navigation improvements (i.e. dredging and stuff) for ports around the country. I don’t see any reason it couldn’t become a uniformed service along the lines of the Public Health Service or NOAA, where their responsibilities remain the same w.r.t. civil engineering works, and the actual combat engineer parts get drawn down along with the rest of the Army. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/23 "2022-01-10T19:55:41Z")
Huh? Tens of thousands of “bored trained killers” _already_ have their enlistments end every year and go back into civilian society without extensive mental health counseling for their separation. Same thing happened in 1865, 1919, 1945, etc… and it’s not like we had chaos and violence all over the place as a result. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/24 "2022-01-10T20:36:01Z")
Technically, I’m a bored trained killer myself, and I haven’t been in so much as a shoving match since I got out 26 years ago. For the vast majority of us, being a soldier is like the uniform - something to put on when you need it and put aside when you don’t. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/25 "2022-01-10T20:49:07Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > There’s plenty of people available to do that. Alien weed infestations and [crumbling infrastructure](https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/civil/americas-infrastructure-news.htm) would tend to contradict that. > [@Telemark](#): > > The folks in the military are much better trained and have more valuable skills. They’re _not_ physically fit and trained to follow orders, and familiar with e.g trucks and moving heavy loads, and working in the bush? Seems like they have the ideal skillset. > [@Telemark](#): > > Besides, the WPA which was active during the Depression didn’t employ people mainly to dig trenches and pull up weeds. I’m not advocating an exact recreation of the WPA, but… > [@Telemark](#): > > There were large, detailed construction projects, that involved 1000’s of workers each. Most of whom were [digging ditches](https://www.courierpress.com/story/life/2018/09/17/history-lesson-works-progress-administration-evansville-indiana/1216640002/) or [moving earth](https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=W.P.A._Construction_in_San_Francisco_(1935-1942)). They weren’t all welders and engineers. > [@Telemark](#): > > There were art, music, theater and writing projects as well. And you think there aren’t artists, musicians etc in the military right now? > [@Telemark](#): > > If all you want is people to pull weeds, there’s no need to repurpose the military. [Alien clearing](https://www.dffe.gov.za/projectsprogrammes/wfw) is a _little_ more finicky than just pulling weeds. And there are plenty of [other jobs](https://workingonfire.org/) a Public Works program can do… > [@Telemark](#): > > If you want to do significant construction and arts project, the military probably isn’t the right organization to repurpose. Tell that to the Romans… ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/26 "2022-01-10T22:06:28Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Military personnel aren’t really trained in the skills needed for many public works projects. You’d be trying to put a square peg in a round hole. cries in seabee ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/27 "2022-01-11T01:44:43Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > If you want to do significant construction and arts project, the military probably isn’t the right organization to repurpose. As noted by others, unless your MOS is “Cannon Fodder,” the skills you learn and do in the military are _very_ transferable to civilian life. The military is, after all, a big, bureaucratic machine. Paperwork is paperwork. Cooks are cooks. Drivers are drivers. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/28 "2022-01-11T02:54:59Z")
Absolutely there are people and organizations in the military that are excellent all all those tasks. But those are relatively small percentages of the total numbers. It might be better to release the Seabees from the military and have them join large construction organizations. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/29 "2022-01-11T13:36:22Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Are we to take the OP hypothetical to mean that **human nature has fundamentally changed?** How many Dopers think their own “human nature” precludes peace? Most people in most of our history have not been actively engaged in war. Dragged and manipulated into war by unrepresentative leaders with their own agendas, pushed into conflict in times of scarce resources, but hardly eager and actively in pursuit of war. If “there have always been wars,” we find longer periods where there has been peace. But peace is kinda boring; no one makes money writing history about farming, going to work, getting along and quarreling with the neighbours, just hanging out minding your own business. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/30 "2022-01-11T13:40:49Z")
After all, somehow the US found something for demobbed people to do in 1946! Hey, what about expanded GI Bills for education? That would also create jobs for all those unemployed PhDs we hear about. With more people to do more work, we could all work less and have better-paid jobs. Heck, in 1959 Richard Nixon was talking about a 4-day work week AND a higher standard of living, but somehow that fell through. We could get it right this time. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/31 "2022-01-11T14:06:00Z")
In our hypothetical, you could pay every member of the US military a full salary for sitting around eating Cheetos and you’d **still** save billions and billions of dollars. “Pay and benefits” doesn’t even comprise half of the budget. It’s ten years old, but [this article by Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/10/05/chapter-6-a-profile-of-the-modern-military/) says the average enlistment term in 2011 was only 6.7 years. Most every soldier who leaves the military without a full pension (and many who do) re-enters the workforce in some capacity. Many of the ones who don’t go to school on the GI Bill instead. I don’t think there would be much concern about what on earth to do with these soldiers. [This page](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/vets/programs/tap) says 200,000 soldiers transition to civilian life every year. Wikipedia says there are 1.3(ish) million active duty soldiers, so that means 15% of the total population of the armed services rotate back to civilian life each year. So even at the current numbers, 10 years is more than enough time to draw down the military without even increasing the total number of soldiers re-entering the workforce as civilians. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/32 "2022-01-11T14:15:54Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > In our hypothetical, you could pay every member of the US military a full salary for sitting around eating Cheetos and you’d **still** save billions and billions of dollars. I haven’t looked at the budget lately, but I figure you could save maybe $100 billion or so by doing this, assuming you kept all of the military personnel on the payroll and provided the same current benefits (housing, food, medical care, etc). This would be the money spent on equipment maintenance and direct military expendables. If you simply canceled all of the current buy programs you could save some more, but that would have other effects (like causing some of those companies to go under…or sue). Most of the military budget in the US goes to personnel costs (payroll, benefits, retirement, etc) and maintenance of existing equipment and systems and bases/facilities. There is some for R&D which presumably you could cut, new weapons procurement and expendables which you could cut, and some other stuff like that. You might be able to get that up to $200 billion if you pulled everyone back and abandoned every base outside of the US, though it would cost quite a bit initially to do this. > [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > [This page](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/vets/programs/tap) says 200,000 soldiers transition to civilian life every year. Wikipedia says there are 1.3(ish) million active duty soldiers, so that means 15% of the total population of the armed services rotate back to civilian life each year. What?? How do we survive with all of these bored, trained killers on the loose every year??? Don’t tell Chingon this…they would freak if they knew all these killers in our midst are being let off the leash and out of their cages annually!! ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/33 "2022-01-11T14:29:08Z")
> [@XT](#): > > If you simply canceled all of the current buy programs you could save some more, but that would have other effects (like causing some of those companies to go under…or sue). I think this is the much bigger pickle, but the answer is the same as for the soldiers. You pay the contracted employees of the military industrial complex to sit around and eat Cheetos\* until you figure out how to repurpose them. Maybe you don’t repurpose them at all and they get to eat Cheetos until their bomb-making contracts expire, but I bet plenty would be willing to take lump sums to fund a pivot (and thus make even more money doing something else). Savings for the first few years might be minimal until contracts run out, but there will still be _some_ savings, and it’s important to not have a massive disruption to the economy by shuttering all those businesses. \*Apparently in my version of this hypothetical, Frito-Lay is the real winner. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/34 "2022-01-11T14:32:57Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > After all, somehow the US found something for demobbed people to do in 1946! Well, yes, we told a lot of women they couldn’t work anymore so men could have their jobs. And pent up demand from years of rationing and wartime shortages led to an economic boom creating even more jobs. We can’t exactly do either of those at the moment (though we are seeing a bit of a demand spike combined with supply issues related to the pandemic). ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/35 "2022-01-11T14:37:30Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > I think this is the much bigger pickle, but the answer is the same as for the soldiers. You pay the contracted employees of the military industrial complex to sit around and eat Cheetos\* until you figure out how to repurpose them. Maybe you don’t repurpose them at all and they get to eat Cheetos until their bomb-making contracts expire, but I bet plenty would be willing to take lump sums to fund a pivot (and thus make even more money doing something else). I guess it would hinge on what you repurposed them to do going forward. If you shifted them to something else that the government was paying for (manned/unmanned space, green energy, drone donut deliver services, Cheetos manufacturing, etc) then that would keep them going, but if you didn’t they would simply die out. You certainly wouldn’t get back all the money as the OP was hoping…probably not ever, certainly not in the short term. But you could still get some good value for the tax money. I could see NASA getting a huge boost in its budget to pay vendors to create new space stations, Moon/Mars unmanned or manned missions, satellite deployments, maybe space resource exploitation, and studies on zero-gee Cheeto consumption and crumb factors. I think a lot of the military vendors could pivot towards something like this or other things that similarly could provide a benefit to the US taxpayer for their dollars. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/36 "2022-01-11T14:37:44Z")
And although I never served, I know a lot of people who have, both officer and enlisted, and none of them are unhinged, belligerent, aggressive, or anything like that. If anything, they’re somewhat less so than the average person- I think military service must teach a degree of calm and/or patience that civilian life doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/37 "2022-01-11T14:41:27Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I think a lot of the military vendors could pivot towards something like this or other things that similarly could provide a benefit to the US taxpayer for their dollars. The jobs themselves and the corresponding local economic boost does that, even if they’re primarily sitting around eating Cheetos. There’s a reason why base closures are contentious - bases are good for local economies, even if there’s no ostensible purpose served by their presence. It amounts to a Keynesian (which I know is a dirty word to some) style fiscal transfer from other parts of a country to wherever the bases are located. This is where the economic debate gets interesting sometimes. Many of the same people who decry government jobs programs are perfectly ok with them when we stick the employees in camo uniforms and wave flags around. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/38 "2022-01-11T14:42:44Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > How many Dopers think their own “human nature” precludes peace? I would have to say…most 'dopers realize this. > [@Kropotkin](#): > > Most people in most of our history have not been actively engaged in war. I don’t know where you are getting this but it is not backed up by any evidence…depending on your definition of ‘war’ of course. If you mean war to be nation-states fighting each other, then sure…of course, for most of human history there weren’t nation-states so there is that. If you mean violence, then, sorry to say, for most known human history there is certainly overwhelming evidence of violence…which is why for this OP most of us are suspending reality to just answer the question instead of fighting the hypothetical. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/39 "2022-01-11T14:51:35Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Telemark](#): > > > > Military personnel aren’t really trained in the skills needed for many public works projects > > Digging trenches and pulling up weeds? The kind of public works projects I’m most familiar with take a couple of days of training, a week at the most. I don’t think it’s particularly valuable to convert the largest, most powerful, most technologically advanced military in history into a gigantic pool of day-laborers. Real “public works” projects would be things like highways and hydroelectric dams. Things the Army Corps of Engineers actually does have skills for. In following with the spirit of the OP, and discounting some level of military presence to deal with low-intensity threats like pirates, terrorists, and drug smugglers, I think the question is really what is the best way to repurpose all that logistics and technical capabilities? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482/40 "2022-01-11T14:53:30Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > This is where the economic debate gets interesting sometimes. Many of the same people who decry government jobs programs are perfectly ok with them when we stick the employees in camo uniforms and wave flags around. Well, the soldiers have to stay somewhere, so it’s not exactly the same, but I agree with your overall point. I think in the short term, just continuing to pay people, even if it’s to simply eat Cheetos, would be a good thing. At some point, you will have to figure out something to have them do, as even eating Cheetos would get old at some point, and bored, trained Cheetos eaters can and will rapidly become a societal menace. Next, they are going to want some Red Bull, then gaming systems, then it’s cats and dogs living together! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-is-over-no-country-needs-a-military-presence-anymore/957482.md?page=3)