We need a strong military. Do we need one as large as what we have now? Perhaps not, but we would still need to spend money to keep it trained and deployable. Unfortunately, our historical track record has been to draw down/stand down too much (pre-WW1, pre-WW2, and post-Vietnam as examples) and overspend to compensate later. We also need to get social engineering and political correctness out of the military culture. This is much more debilitating than a $400 hammer. A big chunk of the bloated spending nowadays is spent providing a variety of "sensisitivity/diversity/cultural awareness/try not to blow up their national treasures as you conquer their government" garbage programs.
The military needs to get back to what its fundamental job is: train your soldiers, airmen, and seamen on how to do their jobs under great duress, including life threatening conditions. Train them to be the best fighters possible. When some fanatic is shooting an AK-47 at a soldier, he's not going to ask him to please refrain from blowing up his town square when the soldier shoots back. He's trying to kill him. I'm all for making sure that "they" die for "their" cause first.
War sucks. It should be an absolute last resort in diplomacy. I agree with a previous poster that we use it quicker than we should. Thats another topic. Once the dogs of war are unleashed, that isn't the time to decide what's right about it. Either we play the war card completely and absolutely, or we don't. Doing it halfway ends up getting too many people killed on both sides.