re: When did it become conservative to support a large standing army?

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....cause we almost got our arse handed to us at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Had our Carriers been anchored in Pearl Harbor the Japs would have completely destroyed our Pacific Fleet.

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Which would have not mattered all that much in the defense of the Pacific coast at that time.

Why?

- The Japanese did not have the logistical capability to do so in 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944 or any year at all. You forget, they were fighting a land war in Asia at the time.

- Carriers are mobile airfields, very useful on the attack, but vulnerable on the defense. An invasion of Hawaii would have been a setback for us, same with losing the Pacific carrier fleet at the time, all of 4 already outclassed carriers. However, by the end of the war we had built over 30 fleet carriers, and between the British and us, had more carriers and surface ships in 1944 than the Japanese had in their entire navy at the height.

- The Japanese were awful at trade warfare, specifically protection of their merchant and supply ships. By the end of 1942, our submarines effectively ended the Japanese supply routes across the Pacific. We marooned a large chunk of their Navy at Chuuk Atoll for lack of fuel, which they couldn't manage to get to the port past our U-boats. The Navy used the lifeless mass of Japanese warships there for target practice later in the war enroute to points east.

TLDR: We are really fricking far from everyone who could hurt us.