Restraint: A post-COVID-19 U.S. national security strategy
The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has weakened the U.S. economy, the foundation of its national power. This has implications for U.S. foreign policy.
Health and economic fallout from COVID-19 makes setting realistic defense priorities more urgent
The response to the coronavirus global pandemic has severely weakened the U.S. economy, the foundation of national power. This reality has vast implications for U.S. foreign policy.
Two economic factors suggest narrowing U.S. foreign policy objectives: (1) U.S. GDP and tax revenue will shrink in 2020, with no certainty about when they might recover. (2) Record deficits and debt endanger future economic growth.
Political reasons for foreign policy restraint augment those economic factors: The public increasingly perceives non-security risks are paramount, and priority will go to domestic spending that aids recovery and increases domestic institutional resilience.
Federal discretionary spending will bear a greater burden because mandatory spending programs are politically harder to cut. Since defense accounts for nearly half of discretionary spending, DoD will likely face sustained cuts.
The U.S. enjoys a favorable geostrategic position with abundant protection from rivals, so it can cut defense spending without compromising security. Indeed, ending peripheral commitments in favor of core security interests strengthens the U.S.
Ending policies bringing failure, overstretch, and drained coffers always made sense—coronavirus makes the case more urgent.
U.S. federal budget authority by category (FY 2019)
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2284"] Declining GDP and tax revenue and increased domestic spending post-COVID-19 will put downward pressure on DoD budgets.[/caption]
Abandon peripheral missions abroad and focus on core U.S. security and prosperity
As the pandemic demonstrates, non-military threats can be far more detrimental to Americans’ well-being than the non-state actors, rogue states, and authoritarian regimes that dominate military planning and drive DoD spending.
The decades-long pursuit of overly ambitious foreign policy goals disconnected from U.S. security contributed to the neglect of U.S. domestic institutions exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Recovering requires investment at home: education, health care, infrastructure, research and development, and policies that promote innovation and job creation.
For the past 20 years, the U.S. spent roughly $1 trillion annually on defense-related objectives (DoD, veteran’s care, homeland security, nuclear weapons, diplomacy) while domestic infrastructure in critical industries went under-resourced.
Rebalancing defense priorities to focus more on economic prosperity and public health will enhance U.S. power in the long term.
Middle East: Reduce overinvestment and military presence, which has backfired and weakened the U.S.
Core Middle East interests are (1) preventing significant disruptions to global oil supply and (2) defending against anti-U.S. terror threats. The former requires minimal U.S. effort; the latter requires intelligence, cooperation, and limited strikes, not occupations.
The Middle East accounts for just 4 percent of global GDP, yet for decades, the U.S. has attempted to reshape the region through military force, disrupting the regional balance of power, exacerbating political instability, and allowing terrorist groups to flourish.
Today, the U.S. has 62,000 troops in the region, many of them vulnerable to attacks by local militias. The U.S. is also fighting wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, largely based on exaggerated fears of Iran, a middling power contained by its local rivals.
The U.S. will be able to fund part of its coronavirus recovery by ending its participation in conflicts in the Middle East and nearby areas, such as Afghanistan and Somalia. This would free up tens of billions of dollars annually for higher priorities.
Additional savings can be had by focusing the Pentagon on its core warfighting missions and right-sizing force structure—reducing ground forces in particular, which have been swollen by these commitments.
The U.S., Europe, and Asia account for 81 percent of global GDP
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2280"] The U.S., Europe, and East Asia are the hubs of the global economy, making them more important to U.S. security and prosperity than the Middle East.[/caption]
Europe: Shift security burdens to wealthy allies
The U.S. has strong economic and diplomatic interests in Europe, but the continent faces limited direct military threats. Despite the fall of the USSR, the U.S. maintains a heavy military footprint in Europe in the name of securing wealthy, relatively safe allies.
This arrangement served U.S. interests when a big U.S. military presence in Europe balanced the USSR’s military might while enabling allies to recover economically and unify.
As allies grew rich and the USSR collapsed, a sensible balancing policy became a subsidy that let wealthy allies “cheap ride” on U.S. taxpayers, driving excess DoD spending while subsidizing lavish social welfare programs for European nations.
Russia is a declining power (with a large nuclear arsenal). The EU dominates Russia in important metrics of national power: 3½:1 population, 11:1 GDP, and 5:1 military spending. European economies are also more dynamic than Russia’s.
Instead of jawboning allies for shirking their obligations, U.S. policy should shift the security burden onto them by (1) ending the European Defense Initiative and (2) implementing a responsible draw down of U.S. ground and nuclear forces on the continent.
This would not only free up finite U.S. resources for higher priorities at home or in Asia, but also encourage European allies to revitalize their militaries: increasing spending, prioritizing modernization, or increasing military cooperation with each other.
Asia: Fortify Asian allies with A2/AD capabilities to deter Chinese aggression at less risk
U.S. policy toward China—the only conceivable strategic competitor—balances several key interests: deterring Chinese territorial expansion against Asian allies, avoiding war, and ensuring a fair and beneficial trading relationship.
Efforts to balance against China should therefore be based on core U.S. interests and carefully designed and planned to reduce cost, minimize escalation risks, and protect trade.
U.S. goals in Asia are inherently defensive (to preserve the territorial status quo) and are best served by a military approach of “defensive defense”: an operational concept that limits U.S. costs by encouraging allies to develop their defensive capabilities.
By improving anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities—a network of sensors and missiles—U.S. allies can deter Chinese attacks more effectively and cheaply than via investment in aircraft and surface ships that mimic U.S. capabilities.
Allied defensive capability is less threatening to China than U.S. offensive capability. Reducing the perceived threat of direct attacks, A2/AD is less prone to spark costly, counterproductive arms racing.
Pressing allies to adopt this approach will allow the U.S. to jettison escalatory plans to defend them by attacking the Chinese mainland, lowering tensions and risks of a broader war with China and allowing for cost saving on U.S. forces in Asia.
U.S. force structure: Constrained DoD budgets means more tradeoffs and rebalancing among the services
With the world’s most sophisticated nuclear arsenal, large oceans separating it from rivals, and weak neighbors, the U.S. has a unique advantage over every other nation—security is abundant and cheap.
The U.S. accounts for 40 percent of global military spending—treaty allies account for 22 percent; Russia and China account for 17 percent. The 2020 DoD budget ($757 billion) exceeds Cold War highs in real terms, reflecting a false sense of insecurity.
Reduced DoD budgets can force debate and prioritization among programs and services—between what contributes to U.S. security and what is peripheral or even counterproductive—that large spending authorizations prevent.
Geography makes the U.S. a natural naval power and trading nation. Distance from other major states means the U.S. is perceived as less threatening—unlike China, which borders other Eurasia powers.
The Navy is the key service for projecting U.S. power globally and defending commerce if necessary while avoiding costly occupations. The Navy should command a larger portion of DoD’s reduced budget.
With no nation building and a large reservist pool, the U.S. can reduce Army, Marines, and special operations forces end strength.
Mission-driven reductions to force structure generate savings on personnel and procurement, enabling savings on operational costs, administrative overhead, basing, and other support functions.
U.S. military spending compared to allies and competitors
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2284"] Total U.S. military spending vs. the rest of the world[/caption]
No major or regional powers are unscathed by the pandemic—strategic thinking will determine who comes out stronger
The pandemic has hit all major powers hard, including U.S. adversaries; the economic pain is well distributed.
China announced its GDP contracted at 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020, the first decline since 1976. The CCP relies on steady economic growth for legitimacy, and in a nation with almost no social safety net, job losses could breed discontent.
While earning some goodwill, China’s efforts to help afflicted nations are an attempt to mitigate the reputational damage from its early obfuscation of the outbreak, which led to the global pandemic. Businesses are also taking steps to limit their China exposure.
Record low oil prices could see Russia’s GDP fall by as much as 15 percent this year, resulting in more pressure to limit its military spending and interventions in places such as Ukraine and Syria.
Iran has been crippled by the virus. Infection has killed several of its senior leaders, and the collapse in oil prices has damaged its already shrinking economy, making this middling power even weaker.
Strong fundamentals undergird U.S. power: favorable geography; a technologically advanced society with a skilled, innovative workforce; and abundant natural resources. Post-COVID rebuilding will require focusing on these strengths to restart the economy.
The U.S. grew to become the global superpower by virtue of its productive economy; advanced technology, including nuclear weapons; and skillful diplomacy.
The pursuit of liberal hegemony—militarized democracy spreading fueled by threat exaggeration and hubris—has resulted in strategic failure, military overstretch, and a hollowing out of U.S. internal strength.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the extent to which U.S. power has been squandered. To recover its strength, U.S. should focus on the core elements of national power while avoiding excessive military projects and the overspending that entails.
The budgetary demands to recover from this pandemic will be enormous, but the fundamental sources of U.S. security are robust—and insensitive to mild deviations in military activities and spending.
Coronavirus is a terrible tragedy but nonetheless an opportunity to shed illusions and rebuild the real pillars of national strength for the long haul.
As long as U.S. focuses on its prosperity—rather than peripheral distractions—it will grow stronger at home and retain the ability to marshal the resources necessary for competition with any adversary.
This article has been republished with permission from Defense Priorities.
Benjamin H. Friedman is Policy Director at Defense Priorities and an adjunct lecturer at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, a graduate of Dartmouth College, and a PhD candidate in political science at the MIT. He previously worked as a Defense Analyst at the Cato Institute and a Researcher at the Center for Defense Information. He's edited three books on defense policy and strategy and has published academic essays in International Security, Political Science Quarterly, Orbis, Foreign Affairs, and World Affairs. He has written op-eds for many outlets, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Politico, The Atlantic, Newsweek, TIME, The Boston Globe, Boston Review, and the Boston Herald.
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
— George Orwell
Election season in the U.S. exemplifies how far the mainstream media has strayed from its mandate to inform and educate.
Like him or not, Robert Kennedy Jr.’s exclusion from CNN’s recent presidential debate, despite the global importance of this election, highlights this issue. It is widely assumed CNN made this decision in collusion with the two main political parties. But CNN’s actions are not isolated and underscore how established media outlets fail to cover America’s real political, economic and social problems in a nuanced manner.
RFK Jr.’s rising poll numbers concern both Republicans and Democrats, as he appears to attract votes from both sides. While it’s understandable that they would try to block him, why is the mainstream media complicit?
One possible answer lies in RFK Jr.’s campaign platform. Often ridiculed for his views, he addresses important issues like the crippling federal debt, the corrupt merger of state and corporate power, the wealth gap, the chronic disease epidemic, and the broken health-care system — all of which affect Americans. He prioritizes these over divisive cultural issues.
He tackles the crisis of trust in institutions and leaders that is gripping America. Yes, he has expressed problematic views on vaccines and other topics that are not evidence based, but so have the other candidates whose voices are heard.
Mainstream media is often considered corporate-friendly due to its heavy reliance on advertising revenue. When your advertisers include pharmaceutical and food companies, defence contractors and financial institutions, addressing critical issues could be seen as corporate suicide. As Noam Chomsky put it, the media often serves as a tool for “manufacturing consent,” rather than fostering informed public discourse. He emphasized that certain topics are confined within allowable boundaries set by powerful institutions, limiting the range of acceptable discussion.
Given this reality, where can one find news, facts and opinions free from corporate influence? A potential answer is the shift in tone from former mainstream media personalities who have left networks like CNN, Fox and MSNBC. Many of these individuals are now reporting from independent online platforms, where they may have more freedom to express their views.
I spend significant time listening to podcasts from all political sides. Former cable TV personalities like Fox’s Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, CNN’s Chris Cuomo, and MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan are now expressing views they would never have aired under corporate influence. Freed from those constraints, they discuss sensitive topics such as American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s influence on American foreign policy, the media’s cosy relationship with big corporations, the role of media in fostering cultural animosity, and the reasons behind America’s seemingly endless wars.
These online platforms significantly impact mainstream media viewership. Consider Joe Rogan, the king of online podcasts. With an average of 11 million daily viewers, he surpasses the combined viewership of all mainstream news talk shows. While he delves into wacky topics and conspiracy theories, he also fearlessly addresses “no-go” subjects ignored by CNN and Fox.
While at Fox, Tucker Carlson averaged of 3.4 million daily viewers. Since his firing and move to X (formerly Twitter), his viewership has increased substantially, with his first three episodes averaging 19.3 million views. Carlson has noticeably transformed since leaving Fox. I have never been a fan of Carlson, but lately he comes across as more likeable and humbler and is now critical of the mainstream media, especially regarding American hawks and their endless warmongering. And it’s not just RFK Jr. or conservative-populists like Carlson whose voices are muted; even opinions from the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and the democratic left in America are rarely heard on CNN or Fox.
If there is one platform that unsettles the establishment, it’s TikTok. With 127 million U.S. users and as the preferred news source for generation Z, it has captured the attention of politicians from both sides of the aisle. Despite the ACLU asserting that banning TikTok would violate the First Amendment, Congress shows broad bipartisan support to either force a sale or ban it entirely due to its China connections and national security issues. However, some argue that China isn’t the primary issue behind this potential ban. For instance, recent college protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza gained traction through TikTok. Views on Israel-Gaza are significantly divided by age demographics, with 18–24-year-olds more in favour of a ceasefire than older groups.
Whether it’s Gaza or Ukraine, the mainstream media seems completely divorced from the nuance associated with these conflicts and most never talk about peaceful solutions in spite of the difficult compromises any solution would entail.
This trend has not gone unnoticed by the political class.
In a recent Sedona Forum conversation between Sen. Mitt Romney and U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken on the narrative of Israel’s war in Gaza, Romney remarked: “Typically, the Israelis are good at PR — what’s happened here?” Blinken offered as one reason the “intravenous” feeds of perpetual news. “You have a social media ecosystem environment in which context, history, facts get lost and the emotion, the impact of images dominates … and it has a very challenging impact on the narrative.”
Romney added: “Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts.”
Political opinions are a personal choice. I am not advocating for the left or the right. Nor am I a populist or prone to buying into the conspiracy theories of some of the above-mentioned candidates or media personalities. But whether or not you agree with the diagnosis of the nonmainstream voices regarding the current situation, and especially their prescription of what’s required to address America’s myriad problems, it’s crucial to hear these voices directly, without a biased filter.
Personally, I’m fortunate to have the time to explore various news platforms online, allowing me to sift through data and verify what appears closest to the truth. Unfortunately, many Americans lack this luxury and rely on mainstream echo chambers, leaving them misinformed, angry and beholden to prevailing dogmas.
Until a media platform emerges that thoroughly sifts through all the news to present facts that more accurately represent reality, consume your daily media menu with a grain of salt.
This piece, originally published on July 10, has been republished with permission from The Toronto Star.
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Peter Thiel attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., July 6, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
The trouble with doing business with Israel — or any foreign government — is you can't really say anything when they do terrible things with technology that you may or may not have sold to them, or hope to sell to them, or hope to sell in your own country.
Such was the case with Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, in this recently surfaced video, talking to the Cambridge Union back in May. See him stumble and stutter and buy time when asked what he thought about the use of Artificial Intelligence by the Israeli military in a targeting program called "Lavender" — which we now know has been responsible for the deaths of an untold number of innocent Palestinians since Oct 7. (See investigation here).
Starts at 1:07:18
Here's the text of his response through our translating tool (emphasis mine):
Look again....I'm not ....I'm not...you know, you know...with... without, without going into all the... you know I'm not on top of all the details of what's going on in Israel, because my bias is to defer to Israel. It's not for us to to second-guess every, everything. And I believe that broadly the IDF gets to decide what it wants to do, and that they're broadly in the right and that's, that's sort of the perspective I come back to. And if I, if I fall into the trap of arguing you on every detailed point, I'm actually going to, I would actually be conceding the broader issue that the Middle East should be micromanaged from Cambridge. And I think that's just simply absurd. And so I'm not, I'm not going to concede that point.
Sources from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told +972 Magazine back in April that military personnel ignored "Lavender" AI’s 10% false positive rate and, using the technology with little human input, intentionally targeted alleged militants in their homes with unguided “dumb bombs,” despite an increased likelihood of civilian harm.
According to the magazine, "Lavender" relied on sprawling surveillance networks and assigned a 1-100 score to every Gazan based on the likelihood the person was a Hamas militant. This is used by another software program called "Where's Daddy?" that warned when one of these "militants" were in residence. Voila! Aim and fire. More than 37,000 Palestinians were on this so-called "kill list" in the first months of the war, according to +972's reporting. From the magazine:
“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
Thiel is a billionaire investor, and Palantir serves as both a major investor and creator of AI technologies. For over a decade it has received major contracts across the U.S. government — including the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI. At the same time its business is international. Palantir is currently testing its new Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) in realtime, on the Ukrainian battlefield. It has been described as "an intelligence and decision-making system that can analyze enemy targets and propose battle plans." Other Palantir security technologies include AI for predictive policing and surveillance.
No doubt this is why the company has been called “the AI arms dealer of the 21st century." According to this glossy TIME magazine spread back in February, "more than half a dozen Ukrainian agencies, including its Ministries of Defense, Economy, and Education, are using the company’s products. Palantir’s software, which uses AI to analyze satellite imagery, open-source data, drone footage, and reports from the ground to present commanders with military options, is 'responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine,' according to CEO Alex Karp."
But what about Israel, where more than 39,000 Palestinians (out of a population of only 2 million) have been killed since Oct. 7, the great majority of them, according to most accounts, even Israeli accounts, civilians? In January, Palantir held a board meeting in Tel Aviv for the first time in "solidarity" with Israel, and announced a new "strategic partnership with the Israeli Defense Ministry to supply technology to help the country’s war effort."
“Both parties have mutually agreed to harness Palantir’s advanced technology in support of war-related missions,” Palantir Executive VP Josh Harris told Bloomberg at the time. “This strategic partnership aims to significantly aid the Israeli Ministry of Defense in addressing the current situation in Israel.”
According to Bloomberg, "no further details on the arrangement were disclosed, including what technology would be provided." So it's not clear that Palantir's fingerprints were on any technology related to the IDF's AI kill-search-destroy program in the early part of the war. However, the company was already providing tools to Israel before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks even happened. In comments during that January meeting, CEO Karp said, “our products have been in great demand...We have begun supplying different products than we supplied before (the war).” This came a year after Palantir introduced AIP and while its use on the Ukraine battlefield was already in full swing, so who knows.
Nevertheless, is it really a surprise that Thiel says his "bias is to defer to Israel"? It's a paying client, after all. Though it is a bit remarkable to hear someone who is sometimes lumped in with the "America First" foreign policy community — not to mention one of J.D. Vance's intellectual muses — say it, at least so bluntly. But Thiel also says the IDF is "in the right," echoing Karp's consistently muscular pro-Israel messaging, signaling that this is not all business but ideological, too.
For Palantir, overseas wars are clearly paying off, but not so much for Palestinians, or, for that matter, Americans who may find themselves subject to this prediction, surveillance, and targeting technology, soon enough. Thiel may be stuttering on stage, but there is a clear message here, if anyone is listening.
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Committee chairman Jack Reed (D-RI), left, looks on as co-chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) shakes hands with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on President Biden's proposed budget request for the Department of Defense on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 9, 2024. REUTERS/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades
Now that both political parties have seemingly settled upon their respective candidates for the 2024 presidential election, we have an opportune moment to ask a rather fundamental question about our nation’s defense spending: how much is enough?
Back in May, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, penned an op-ed in the New York Times insisting the answer was not enough at all. Wicker claimed that the nation wasn’t prepared for war — or peace, for that matter — that our ships and fighter-jet fleets were “dangerously small” and our military infrastructure “outdated.” So weak our defense establishment and so dangerous the world right now, Wicker pressed, the nation ought to “spend an additional $55 billion on the military in the 2025 fiscal year.”
Echoing Cold Warriors of a bygone era, the senator espoused the need for “overwhelming military superiority.” But how to gauge when such superiority had been achieved? Would $55 billion ensure this martial dominance? Would $50 billion, or far less, not do?
Too few policymakers and potential voters today are asking these vital questions, relying instead on well-worn tropes about deterrence, strength, and credibility to sustain the Pentagon’s massive budget. (The current 2024 fiscal year budget is $825 billion, with the 2025 DoD request sitting at $849 billion.) But with the presidential race now set, it behooves Americans to think more deeply about their spending on defense and national security. They have an example to follow.
In 1971, with the American war in Vietnam still raging, Pentagon analysts Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith published a strategic decision-making primer titled “How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program.” The two Defense Department officials worried that frustration over Vietnam had caused the public mood to shift and that spending was no longer adequate against contemporary communist threats. “People are choosing sides,” they argued. “The middle ground seems to be eroding.”
But they also weren’t convinced that “the nation’s military needs” were “necessarily what the Joint Chiefs of Staff” said they were. To them, “pure” military requirements didn’t exist, especially when it came to grand strategy. Defense spending choices incurred both costs and risks. Thus, it was the principal task of the secretary of defense to “shape a defense program in the national interest.” Of course, biases and intuitional pressures affected how one defined “national interest.” Not surprisingly, in their role as analysts — and because they had worked for Robert S. McNamara — Enthoven and Smith advocated for a quantitative-heavy, systems analysis approach to “rational decision making.”
While much of the book is heavy with dense, analytical prose, “How Much Is Enough?” still asks useful questions that remain relevant for us today. How well are DoD budget practices aligned to U.S. foreign policy objectives? Are spending ceilings logical or “arbitrary”? Are some military services “entitled” to a certain percentage of the defense budget, and, if so, why? What is the relationship between spending on social programs versus national security?
Perhaps most importantly, Enthoven and Smith argued for a “central plan” to drive resource requests and avoid duplication of effort. Once more, they encouraged spending criteria that supported the “national interest.” In evaluating forces structures and strategic mobility, weapons systems and nuclear stockpiles, analysts always had to keep in mind a central question: “for what purpose?”
Such queries raised ire within hawkish circles, especially as American troops were withdrawing from what seemed a losing war in Southeast Asia. With South Vietnam teetering, the specter of falling Asian dominoes still held purchase in the early 1970s. Meanwhile, talk of engaging with the Soviet Union over nuclear arms limitations elicited harsh rebukes from those claiming the Nixon administration was pursuing a dangerous policy of “appeasement.”
But the questions Enthoven and Smith posed mattered then and they matter now. At the national policy level, ends and means are supposed to interact. But in our current environment, calls from Senator Wicker and the like simply ask for more means with little attention paid to the ends they intend to serve. In short, we haven’t been very good at asking if our ever-increasing defense budgets are linked to any tangible, practicable grand strategic objectives.
A recent report from the Stimson Center notes that “US defense spending has increased nearly 50% since the start of the 21st century.” Contrary to Wicker’s fear-mongering, the report suggests that this “permanent war economy” is only serving to “hamper US military readiness.”
It seems crucial, therefore, that we question the strategic rationale for the amount of money we are spending. Is pursuit of global hegemony and dominance — what some call “primacy” — to allay our fears, in fact, an achievable objective? Will spending billions of more dollars offer us the security guarantees for which some pundits advertise?
The problem here is more than just bipartisan budget inertia, of spending more because we seemingly always spend more. Rather, as Enthoven and Smith insinuated, our track record of “balancing military objectives with other national objectives,” a difficult task for sure, has been spotty at best. Policy elites still struggle to devise appropriate “yardsticks of sufficiency” that measure capabilities against security objectives. Worse, when it comes to our national security strategy, voters don’t appear all that inclined to ask the hard question “how much is enough?”
With the 2024 electoral field apparently established, now is a good time for Americans to ask that very question. Interrogating policies of U.S. primacy underwritten by massive military spending may appear, to some, politically infeasible. No political candidate likely believes they could win at the polls by arguing that Americans don’t have the right to pursue primacy on the global stage. But, in an election year, voters actually are well-placed to ask tough questions when it comes to defense spending. In the end, they’re paying for the answer.
In 1971, Enthoven and Smith were asking similarly hard questions because they believed it served the nation’s best interests. Undoubtedly, Senator Wicker feels similarly. But it’s worth voters engaging in this moment when the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East seemingly demand more, more, more. Of course, we shouldn’t underestimate the threats we face. But surely now is the time to ask both our presidential candidates, “how much is enough?”
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