I remember the 'peace dividend', this from NYT OCT 1991:

"Lawmakers from both parties agree that changed circumstances mean that the military budget should be re-examined. If, as the President said -- even before yesterday's announcement of plans for sweeping cuts in the Soviet nuclear arsenal -- war with the Soviet Union is "no longer a realistic threat," then why, they ask, is it necessary to keep active a dozen aircraft carriers at an annual cost of about $600 million apiece? Why should the nation spend billions for the Star Wars missile defense system, the B-2 Stealth bomber, a new attack submarine or other astronomically expensive state-of-the-art weapons? Why should tens of thousands of troops be maintained in Germany, South Korea and elsewhere around the world?

Those questions were raised not only by liberal Pentagon critics but by such staunch conservative supporters of the military as Senator Sam Nunn, the Georgia Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain, a conservative Republican and former career naval officer who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam."

It seemed a bit incongruous that right after Desert Shield/Storm that a lot of folks wanted to go out and start cutting the DoD budget. It had an air of political opportunism to it, in a bi-partisan sort of way.

At Center for Defense Information they looked at the cuts in 1992:

"NARRATOR: So how much military spending is enough?

The Congress has not settled on an answer, but many members feel the administration plan would spend more than enough. Senator Jim Sasser, chairman of the Budget Committee, has proposed spending $120- to $140 billion less than President Bush over five years. Senator John McCain, an influential Republican on the Armed Services Committee, has proposed spending about $250 billion in 1997, $40 billion less than the administration in that year.

Large savings could come as early as next year."

As the election hadn't taken place at that point, he was wanting to spend less than a Republican President on defense.

In DEC 2001 Conrad Crane was looking at 1990's defense postures in Transforming Devense at the Army's Strategic Studies Institute:

"Large reductions in military personnel require several years to effect due to the need to assure appropriate skill mixes and experience levels are retained. Direct cuts in readiness resources, such as suggested by Senator John McCain in 1996 by implementing 'tiered readiness' for major force elements, are difficult to achieve in practice since they would suggest that some of the active forces would not be ready for employment on short notice.19

19. John McCain (U.S. Senator, R-AZ), Ready Tomorrow: Defending American Interests in the 21st Century, White Paper, Washington, DC: March 19, 1996."

By 1996 the US had already had the WTC bombing and our embassy staff in Pakistan attacked, as well as the thwarted Landmarks attack and Oplan Bojinka. Those two plots were showing the high level of interconnectedness between multiple different organizations working together.

Things didn't look too good in other parts of the Western Hemisphere, particularly with Hezbollah showing up in Argentina to kill hundreds there, and even stage a hijacking in Panama. FARC was slowly killing its way to the top of the drug chain from Colombia and numbered in the tens of thousands.

Working in DoD in that era we were already getting some of the high level talk that things were changing and hard out there, yet the Cold War structure was ill-suited to this new world. The military was being stretched thin, however, as the President was involving it in 'peace keeping' operations and not seeking Congressional authorization for them. That wound up getting minimally increased funding which was negatively impacting readiness. Congress was warned about that in 1997 by their own staff sent to the NTC and JRTC. By 1999 the US Army had to announce that two full divisions had dropped to their lowest readiness since Vietnam. Particularly painful was the 2000 report on 10MD, one of the premier fighting organizations that had slowly been ground down due to Presidential and Congressional neglect.

Remember these things when Sen. McCain gives a fine talk up of what he will do.

Those are all relevant points raised by ajacksonian. But we are choosing between three candidates and McCain is the only one who has been steadfast in his insistence that we must defeat our adversaries in Iraq and continue to fight against Iranian dominance in the mideast. The other two candidates want us to withdraw from Iraq, regardless of the prospects of success.

The points raised by ajacksonian are selected to be those that throw McCain's judgment and motivations into question - and, again, they are relevant points to consider. But the most recent evidence is that McCain has been the only one of the three candidates whose judgment has been correct since 9/11. He called for Rumsfeld's resignation, criticized the efforts in the first few years of the conflict in Iraq, and called for troop increases long before the "surge." None of these positions were politically expedient, given what was known at the time.

Hillary Clinton bases her political positions upon whatever is popular. Barack Obama has no positions.

Simon: I concur in your assessment and have expounded upon those thoughts at http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/02/ann-coulter-rush-limbaugh-and-mccain.html
One of the points I try to make is that the last thing we need in wartime is a President who puts political expediency above principle. Such leaders weigh all in the balance of what is best politically rather than putting concern for national security and soldiers first. Bill Clinton's refusal to provide armor to our troops in the days before the Blackhawk Down incident is a classic example. We will pay a price to stay in Iraq and finish the job. But I think that price will be far less than the long term costs in blood and gold that we would pay for withdrawing from Iraq simply because it is politically expedient for Obama or Clinton to do so.

Ajacksonian -

The 'Peace Dividend' forced out about half of the aircraft maintenance technicians in my Air Force Reserve unit. They didn't WANT to go - but their job slots were eliminated due to the budget cutbacks. Oh, they had the chance to find other units - but would you travel half-way across the country on your own dime for one weekend a month? We lost a lot of good people then - the hassle was just too much.

Oddly enough, being a personnel puke at the squadron, MY job wasn't even touched. But we sure lost a lot of good aircraft mechanics.

The only thing more expensive than a military that has what it needs to win a war - is a military that doesn't. THAT costs you everything your country has.