Let’s cut defense spending

Brett says:

Congrats. I have a couple of comments on your article:

Europe has largely put war behind it with the advent of the European Union, and save for the Korean peninsula, Asia is largely moving toward a peaceful, global economy as well.

There’s also Taiwan to consider. They’re rather peaceful now, but all it would take would be a nationalist president pushing it too far, and we’d have a conflict with China.

Refocusing our defense priorities into regions that have more direct implications for our own national security, such as Africa and the Middle East, would force Europe to take into account not only the defense of its own soil, but the vast expense associated with that defense.

That’s a waste of time. For one thing, “defending” Europe is cheap right now, with our force numbers drastically down from the Cold War Era. Focusing more on the Middle East and Africa won’t save you much money, particularly since, if anything, you’ll need to spend more money on maintaining force projection in that area.

The military-industrial complex erected over the past several decades is keeping defense conservatives from creating a truly responsive and efficient military, capable of handling 21st-century threats.

The Military-Industrial Complex is the reason why we have such a capable military, period. People like to throw that little tidbit from Eisenhower around, but they always neglect to mention that Eisenhower said in the same speech that the MIC as necessary due to the changes in how warfare was being fought. He was just worried about it having undue influence.

By the way, I read the Grayson bill. It didn’t sound like he was cutting pork – it read more like he was blocking the government from using a certain pool of discretionary funds for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the like.Report