Actually, I wouldn't call that very optimistic. I think what will happen is that we will look back from fifty years away and realize that nobody has outright won a large war since WWII. You really need big standing armies to be able to define victory well. We beat the Iraq army easily, and can't beat the non-army, or even define who we are fighting. Maybe it's Iran, but maybe it's some guy names Al, or maybe just a few different local factions. We won't win simply because we can't find anybody to beat.
There was that old protest question from the 60's: "What would happen if they held a war and nobody showed up?" Now we seem to have the new question: "What would happen if we held a war, and nobody could figure out a purpose?"
