> As to boots in the ground, you are just naive. The only thing that stops China or Russia from invading US is US military potential. The money that goes into military buys you peace.
No, i am not naïve, you just have no idea how militaries, amphibious assaults and logistics work. How many hundreds of thousands, or millions of soldiers are required to conquer the US? How do you supply them? For reference, the invasion of Sicily had 160 thousand, and had the advantage of being against an enemy with no will to fight and within less than a hundred kilometres from a friendly shore for supplies. And then you have a population, which again, is highly armed.
The US spent more than half of its existence with practically no armed forces. Yes, warfare has drastically changed and various amphibious assault and supply ships now exist, but there are still none in anything close to the quantity required to supply multiple hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their equipment across an ocean, and there's also a much heavier need for logistics.
The US can cut the entirety of its army and air force tomorrow and just keep the navy and marines, and it's still invincible from invasion and will remain so.
It's like the misconception that the US armed forces somehow have anything to do with freedom ("protecting"), of American citizens or otherwise. It's just stupid American propaganda that doesn't make sense if you think about it for a bit.