Cato Institute’s Chris Preble calls it right. Today’s American military keys on a hyperactive foreign policy. We are largely focused on defending others. We continue to discourage our allies from defending themselves.
The most important piece of the military spending puzzle remains the United States’ hyperactive foreign policy. Even if we were to implement the sensible reforms made politically realistic by spending caps, we would still spend more than we need to keep Americans safe. That is because today’s military is mainly geared toward defending others. By discouraging our allies from doing more to defend themselves and their interests, U.S. policymakers have ensured that U.S. troops bear disproportionate burdens, and U.S. taxpayers pay disproportionate costs. If we are going to spend less on the military in the next ten years than we have over the last ten, we must ask our smaller, cheaper military to do less. And we must expect others to do more.
The Budget Control Act, for all its flaws, has managed to deliver something once thought impossible: actual spending cuts. Our military remains second to none, despite those cuts, and might be stronger in the future because of them. A deal to cancel or reverse those cuts threatens to derail sensible reform proposals that could deliver far larger savings to taxpayers in the future.
Sen. McConnell is right: Congress should stand firm.
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