The question of today is: What second and third order affects will this DOD drawdown have on our Nation's Security and Global perception?

DoD drawdown is the name of the game, this is not something new, and it will continue to happen.  As far as hurting our nations security it apperas the insider threat is more of the issue over drawdown. I really honestly do think any true blooded American could give a crap what other countries think of us

All valid responses, very thought provoking and stated with candor. As some of my peers can attest, this drawdown will ultimately target the senior NCO Corps. Pushing out our seasoned NCO's, via a QMP/QSP system with an established "Fast-Tracker" type NCO positive bias. These changes, like the aotomatic promotion fiasco of 2005-2006, will ultimately, in my oppinion, create yet another chink in a military chain already riddled with flaws and vulnerabilities. As a Platoon Sergeant, I had squad leader that had never been to a promotion board; they were automatically selected for SGT and SSG due to their time in service and the fact that they werent currently flagged for adverse action. How will these "NCO's" better serve our Army in the long run then the numerous SFC and MSGs recently selected for early retirement. Once again, its a short term solution to a problem that was selected due to its commercial business savvy as opposed to applying common sense.

I would tend to agree with CW2 Evans and SFC Webster.  If you look at our history we have traditionally maintained a smaller force in peace time that is just big enough to train new troops in the event of a conflict that requires a significant inflation in force numbers.  Which is not the only reason but one of the reasons that it took us so long to join in during WW1 and WW2.  Historically this has worked out alright for us.  The question is will it work out alright in the future.  With the technological advances that both Chief Evans and SFC Webster have referenced I am not so sure that we will have the luxery of time to train our forces like we have had in the past.  While some of those technological advances may enable us to engage and destroy our future enemies without needing more troops, others may not, depending on the enemy.  For example, our main battle tank (M1A2 SEP V2) is one of the best and most technologically advanced killing machines on today's battlefield.  However, it does have weaknesses just like every tank, plane, helicopter, ship, etc.. There are other countries with weapons that can counter any of our technological advances, like the Russian T-90 or Hind.  It is a given that if we were to come up against an enemy with the technological equivilent or better that this would end up being a completely combined arms fight, but it would be on their side as well.  Which is why I don't think that our technology would trump overall troop strength in a fight like this.  In closing I think the second and third order effects would be a decrease in our ability to engage in a combined arms fight with a non-third world country that maintains a military of significantly greater proportion than our own.  Where we do make up for lower troop strength is our ability to allow our lower level commanders and NCOs to make immediate decisions on the ground (or in the fight) that they see fit, which makes us more flexible and unpredictable than most other militaries.