I just got back from a speech sponsored by the American Conservative Defense
Alliance in which the speaker, Christopher A. Preble, argued
that America should cut back its military spending. A former
naval officer, he objected to the use of American troops for
"nation-building" and supported a stance similar to the
Weinberger-Powell Doctrine that troops only be used to protect
vital interests in winnable missions where there is evident
American public support. Preble differed from Weinberger and
Powell in that he wanted the size of the military to be cut so as
to cut costs and avoid nation-building temptations. His argument,
expressed in his book,
The Power Problem, was interesting from a conservative angle
when one thinks about military spending in the same way as
regular bureaucratic government activity. He pointed out that
many of the countries that we protect essentially get to free
ride off of our military power. For example, the United States
spends $2600 per person on national defense while Germany spends
only $452 per person. Legally, Germany enjoys the benefit of
collective defense from Article V of NATO and is therefore able
to devote resources to other expenditures while the United States
picks up a disproportionate share of the military bill.
In recent years, as deficit spending has ballooned, this argument
in favor of fiscal conservatism with respect to military
expenditures has gained some support. The most obvious proponent
being Congressman Ron Paul who expressed similar views during the
2008 Republican Primary debates.
While it might be tempting in this time of record deficits to
cut-back on military spending, we must continue to view the
military as an investment rather than as a vehicle for
"nation-building." Our military, which is the strongest in the
world, has the effect of deterring both enemies and potential
enemies. During the Cold War, President Reagan's "peace through
strength" foreign policy helped squeeze the Soviet Union into
collapse. Instead of increasing military investments as Reagan
did, had we cut back on military spending during the 1980s, it is
not clear whether the USSR would have fallen. We could still be
spending up to 10% of GDP on the military today -- or in an even
worse scenario there could have been a nuclear war with the
Soviet Union or a geopolitical situation in which several less
rational nations began nuclear programs to deter the Soviet
threat. Peace through strength, echoed in the Bush Doctrine from
2002, should not be abandoned due to short-sighted economic
problems. America is, should be, and will continue to be the
world's military leader. Americans, especially conservatives,
should not want the USA to be in a position someday where we feel
dependent on other nations for our own security. That said,
former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was correct in 1999
when she wrote in
Foreign Affairs that the United States' armed forces "are not
the world's 911."
