Your connection between military superiority and putting lots of people in prison is wholly contrived.
The reason we put lots of people in prison is racial animosity. After segregation was declared illegal, all the middle class folks fled the cities, leaving urban cores ghettoized. Crime, naturally, went up as a result. Then we introduced the drug war, which got liberals ("just say no!" moms) and virulent racists (looking for a way to get blacks out of mainstream society now that segregation was over) on the same platform. Of course it was wildly popular, and the mainstream didn't care because the media portrayal was black people being put in jail for doing "black drugs" (crack cocaine). Then the police and prison unions got involved, and well now we have the situation we have today. It's really horrible and atrocious, but it has zilch to do with the military.
The reason we put lots of people in prison is racial animosity. After segregation was declared illegal, all the middle class folks fled the cities, leaving urban cores ghettoized. Crime, naturally, went up as a result. Then we introduced the drug war, which got liberals ("just say no!" moms) and virulent racists (looking for a way to get blacks out of mainstream society now that segregation was over) on the same platform. Of course it was wildly popular, and the mainstream didn't care because the media portrayal was black people being put in jail for doing "black drugs" (crack cocaine). Then the police and prison unions got involved, and well now we have the situation we have today. It's really horrible and atrocious, but it has zilch to do with the military.