US should pull out of the world and fix the US.

The Founding Father, James Madison:

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.... [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and ... degeneracy of manners and of morals.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

It might be worthwhile to consider that the United States maintains two armies (the Army and Marines), two navies (the Navy and the Coast Guard) and five air forces (one for each service, plus the unmanned recon and strike force maintained by the CIA).

Each have their own mission, and several have long traditions. They can't really be said to represent clearcut cases of "waste, fraud and abuse." On the other hand, they all require separate and duplicative command and support infrastructure, and have in the past procured equipment independently of one another. This compartmentalization, while it has some compensating advantages, is very expensive.

Not necessarily; part of the point of allies can also be to provide us staging areas to project our power, means of financing our committments, support for our goals in multi-lateral institutions, etc.

You really do seem to have a simple leftist view of the world, which to me, at least, seems nearly the opposite of realism.

Most of our foreign adventurism is related to oil.

Take $100billion out of DoD and give it to the DoE to research alternative energy.

I know it's short post - but it would be helpful to understand where the money goes in DoD to see choices beyond the simple distinction you've made above.

Roles/ Missions -- Iraq/ AFG/ HOA/ Yemen/ Korea....
Procurement
Personnel and health care/ benefits
Intelligence
Maintenance...

My sense is you could likely garner political support for cutting defense civilian personnel and contractors in duplicative areas -- but I'm uncertain, how much REAL money is saved in doing so....Anectodally, I know DoD personnel funding, salaries over 100K, and contracts have exploded since 9-11...but I sense that w/out looking at procurement and personnel then cutting defense spending will only be a ticker at the margins exercise.

Probably, this is another symptom of a budget and policies made for interest groups. The military advocates for its own power and budget, but doesn't a substantial push come from the military contractors? Isn't this just the same as making health care legislation for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies or banking regulations for a few of the largest banks? All of this signals a drift away from an elected government to one controlled by unelected private interests.

If we can reduce the military budget, then that will demonstrate that we can salvage an elected government; otherwise….

Bob spencer

Speaking for the allies (Sweden), Washington's ability to distinguish between allies and vassals seem a bit lacking. Not that my government isn't trying to be a good vassal, but the people just won't support it.

One is to hold one’s military obligations (aka “roles and missions”) constant and to devise cheaper ways of meeting these commitments. In this approach, you have to identify genuine waste, fraud and abuse in the Pentagon, and devise a convincing way to defend various interests while spending less money.

The problem with this is that it's a good way to ruin a military, since the cuts often come from "the tail" (meaning the logistics and the like). This tends to give those who want to keep the commitments at a lower price a false illusion of how effective things still are.

Think of the Clinton Administration years. The front-line strength wasn't really reduced, but there was major follow-up failure in funding logistical support and the like, so most of the missions of that era were drawing down existing stocks of fuel, ammunition, and such.

The second way to cut defense spending is to reduce one’s military commitments; i.e., to decide that there are some missions or obligations that the United States does not need to perform, either because they are not essential, because they are counterproductive, or because other states can and will do them better than we will. Some of us might put the Afghan War under this heading.

This is the much more politically difficult but wiser course of action for reducing defense spending. Particularly in the case of the US, since the US could re-define "national security" for the US in such a way that defense commitments would plummet in cost. *

It's politically difficult because of bureaucratic inertia (once you create a bureaucracy, it tends to resist being disbanded and is always on the hunt for more resources to fulfill its mission), entrenched political and intellectual support for commitments (think of Israel and NATO), and in the case of the US, an ever-present fear that if we do anything that makes us look "weak", our hegemonic status will come crashing down along with a US-favorable international system.

*The US, for example, could define its national security as being basically "protect the homeland from invasion", and turn its military into a nuclear striking force. That would be a cheap military by comparison, although much, much less flexible in what it could do.

"Always interesting", even when he's blindingly stupid?:

e.g. supporting a boycott of Whole Foods just because the CEO had the audacity of proposing an alternative to Obamacare in the Wall St Journal?

(because the main narrative from "progressives" was that there WERE NO viable alternatives worth considering... so much for freedom of debate...)

Or how about his comment, "What if we had a 95 percent marginal tax rate on income over $10 million?""

What if? Perhaps you'd see the largest flight of capital from the US in human history... but no matter...

Cheerleader for Hugo Chavez? Confusing democratically elected politicians with 'Democracy' (soon after Chavez election, most of opponents had to flee the country under threat of imprisonment...)

How about this (embarrassing) admission: "I’ve come to be increasingly baffled by the high degree cynicism and immorality displayed in big-time politics."...In related news, geese mysteriously defecate a lot. This from a guy who ostensibly pays attention to politics.

I've always thought Yglesias to be the prototypical naive hyperliberal who thinks that we're just a *few more laws* away from the ideal egalitarian society; rarely does he say anything interesting about whatever topic he's latched onto - if anything, he's a semi-articulate parrot for popular progressive hot-topics. You want "interesting"?? (I suppose that depends on ones personal definition) Try Christopher Hitchens. Yes, he's bathouse crazy, but 10X smarter and more insightful than Yglesias, and a world class writer to boot. At least he doesnt pretend to be anything other than a malcontented drunk genius. Yglesias is boring precisely because he is so convinced he's the mouthpiece of some coherent, ascendent intellectual movement.