20 or 30 years down the road when China's defense budget matches ours, it will be interesting to see how much we have to cut personnel costs so our procurement, operations and maintenance budget will be comparable to theirs. If it is anything like what happened when civilian industries had to match offshore labor, there will be a lot of pain. I am actually surprised that we kept immediate benefits after retirement, sooner or later that will be replaced by something like what the reserves receive - expect medical to get sliced for retirees as well.
Likewise, other huge structures are going to have considered for cutting: the size of the Army, do the Marines need fixed wing aviation, does the Navy need to keep carriers deployed constantly, does the Air Force need another stealth bomber? Even smaller things, such as the military having more band members than the State Department has foreign service officers are going to be discussed. There will be a lot of screaming, and a lot of slicing, but in the end changes will have to be made to match competitors. Nothing lasts forever.