One thing which is pretty obvious imho but often overlooked... It doesn't matter how many tanks you have when your opponent has atomic bombs. The same is true

One thing which is pretty obvious imho but often overlooked... It doesn't matter how many tanks you have when your opponent has atomic bombs. The same is true for most of the airplanes, ships and robots. So from a western perspective all those weapons are only useful in an offensive war against a weak opponent (no atomic bombs). In this context it also makes sense to have less but better trained soldiers. Reducing casualties reduces bad press. You don't need millions of soldiers to bomb away Irak anyway. If you assume that military leaders have basic logic reasoning (i think they are smart actually), you see that self defense is not the primary goal for western countries (except Switzerland).