Part of the shift to a large standing army is probably the MIC milking the taxpayer, as many suppose. Another part, however, is that the pace of war is so high

Part of the shift to a large standing army is probably the MIC milking the taxpayer, as many suppose. Another part, however, is that the pace of war is so high and the minimum required level of training and military organizational capability to be able to go toe to toe with a top-tier foreign power is so great that it's not been clear, since the end of WWII, that the US would again be able to take so very long to get rolling as it did in that war, if it wants to be able to project power abroad at all in a meaningful way against strong enemies. IOW scaling back our military too much might well be the equivalent of bowing out of the first stage or two of the next great conflict, even more so than it was in WWII, and it's less clear all the time that our historical gigantic advantage of the two-ocean moat will give us so much leisure to prepare, or that we'd quite so easily be able to wrest back control of vital supply lines if another world war breaks out, having allowed the enemy to take them in the first place (even if it stays non-nuclear—if it goes that way, of course, we're in totally uncharted and very bad territory, for all concerned) Then there's the domestic concerns: the military is the only jobs program with bipartisan support. College, free housing (including for a family!), free healthcare (ditto!), good education for your kids. Retirement! Why, it's practically a way for a blue collar American kid to opt into European-level social support (though with some, ah, significant costs). There are social-stability interests in keeping recruitment levels high.