Unfortunately, since there are plenty of nations, some of them very powerful, who want to rob our hard won freedoms from us.
Presently, powers such as Russia, China, N Korea and a few others, are willing to risk war in an effort to enlarge their borders. (e.g. Russia vs Ukraine, China vs Tibet or Nepal).
In recent decades we have witnessed N Korea attack S Korea, N Vietnam attack S Vietnam and other conflicts aimed at national expansion.
Being chief hegemon of the world, like it or not, America keeps the sea lanes open, rather that allow the oceans to be divided into sectors governed by pirate nations.
This requires the world's most powerful navy to keep all the oceans, sea lanes open...
https://www.dossier.today/p/what-happens-when-america-no-longer After the fall of western Roman Empire, back in the early medieval period, Europe was composed of perhaps a hundred warring states, until the Carolingian kingdom under Pepin I, took the lead, subdued several other kingdoms and became the top dog, referred to as the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne.
Since then a major power was to hold hegemony...or face continual warfare. That is that natural flux of civilization. "PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH"
If we simply refused to finance our military as at present, hegemony could pass to China, Russia, North Korea or the EU, and they could fill the vacuum..
..Then we Americans could live under another country's thumb, as Poland, Ukraine, East Germany and the Baltics did from the 1940s until the 1990s, when the Iron Curtain came crashing down.
At this point in history the USA is top dog, and I prefer it stay that way, even though we must support a veritable monster of a military.
https://www.civitasinstitute.org/research/american-power-and-the-global-calculus-of-peace https://yournews.com/2026/03/02/6568010/american-military-might-strength-that-keeps-the-peace/ I am not eager to have my progeny live under a tyrant's yoke !