What have we done with our military in the past decade that couldn't have been done cheaper and better with less?

Limitless money for weapon systems has created a system that constantly over promises and under delivers. A little bit of constraint and we might have had jet plans, carriers and littoral combat ships that weren't total dysfunctional money pits.

Afghanistan should have been fought with cruise missiles and pallets of cash and guns, maybe a few special forces actions.

Iraq defines fiasco.

Respect for American leadership is at an all time low.

The War of the Barbary Coast would have been a way better model to work off for Afghanistan, not, oh wait, there was no model for Afghanistan. Despotic regimes get a lot more reasonable when they realize that life is going to be shit if they don't at least pretend to play ball, when they are deposed all bets are off.

I was all for putting Saddam back on the leash, instead we put a corrupt Shia government in power that could really give two shits about U.S. interests.

We also lost, twice. We just as easily could have caused a lot of havoc, killed some terrorist and not lost if we put nothing of significance on the ground. Sure our pet warlords would have done some terrible shit, but our puppets have been hard at work commuting atrocities and corruption anyway. We might still be feared but we aren't respected. We look dumb and dangerous.

We have expanded our robust military system with NATO right into a crisis. Russia may be on the ropes but they still merit a sphere of influence. Would have been no problem and fairly just to pick off a few eastern bloc nations but we got a little too aggressive. In the good old days we understood the value of a nice buffer, instead the idea that any opposition must be opposed with an iron will has taken over the American political/diplomatic psyche. Russia is doing nothing but acting in their own self interest, trying to maintain a thin buffer between themselves and NATO. NATO country defense budgets are for the most part anemic, why the hell are we wasting so much treasure on an alliance who's members refuse to pull their own weight? We'd be overdue to pull back from NATO a bit if we didn't need them to join "coalition of the willing's" to fight in the stupid wars we should even have been fighting.

There is robust and there is robust. We are at a point of robustness that looks an awful lot like stupid. Wasting a bunch of blood and treasure doesn't seem like a bad plan when you essentially have limitless resources, I wonder if we would be a bit more careful if we were more constrained.