Refocus our foreign and defense policy

…by narrowing our strategic interests, avoiding foreign entanglements, and preparing for a future of asymmetric warfare.

Every American should be asking the same questions: Why, if we spend three times what China spends on defense and eight times what Russia spends, and have done so for decades, aren’t we militarily impregnable?

And, how does a band of Houthi militants manage to land a missile on a U.S. base? Why, after weeks of sustained bombing, does Iran still retain meaningful military capacity?

Also, why does the U.S. continue to think of itself as the peaceful country in the world, when the record plainly shows we are the most militarily active nation on earth? Why are we always at war? Have you ever thought about the cumulative cost of all this? What we could have done with the resources squandered in wars of choice?

These are not rhetorical questions. They deserve real answers. And the answers point not to insufficient spending, but to strategic failure.

In this, both parties share responsibility. Republicans seem to think more is always better. Democrats are afraid to be labeled soft on defense. Can any of you remember anyone in either party ever seriously challenging what we actually get for our money?

The numbers don’t lie

The FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act authorized roughly $886 billion in national defense spending. Total U.S. defense outlays in FY2023 reached approximately $916 billion — and that figure does not include the approximately $22 billion annual budget of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which funds nuclear warhead development and maintenance through the Department of Energy rather than the Pentagon. The National Guard is counted within the DoD total. Since 2001, cumulative defense spending has exceeded $14 trillion. The U.S. now spends more on defense than the next ten countries combined.

Yet public discourse remains dominated by the language of vulnerability — particularly with respect to China and Russia. China’s 2023 defense spending was estimated at approximately $296 billion. Russia’s was roughly $109 billion. Even accounting for purchasing power differences, the U.S. maintains an overwhelming spending advantage. If decades of budgetary superiority have not produced confidence in deterrence, the problem is not insufficient spending. It is strategy, structure, and accountability.

We are not the peaceful country — and that should change

Americans have long believed they live in a nation that fights only when provoked. The record does not support that belief.

Since World War II, the United States has initiated or participated in major military operations in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, the Gulf War, Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, among others. Many of these were wars of choice, not of necessity. The Costs of War Project at Brown University estimates that post-9/11 wars alone cost approximately $8 trillion in direct and long-term obligations.

Put that number in human terms. Eight trillion dollars is roughly what it would cost to provide universal health coverage to every American for a decade, rebuild every major infrastructure system in the country — roads, bridges, water, broadband — and still have enough left over to fully fund the transition to a clean energy economy. We did not do any of those things. We did Iraq and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan lasted twenty years. Iraq cost more than 4,500 American lives and trillions in long-term commitments. Neither produced a stable, pro-Western outcome. Earlier interventions across South America produced instability, not durable democratic gains. This is not a record of restraint. It is a record of overextension.

Acknowledging this history is not anti-American. It is the precondition for a smarter strategy — one that uses military force as a genuine last resort rather than a first impulse.

Alliances, trade, and restraint are not weakness

The most durable form of national security is not the absence of enemies or in the continual increases in spending that we can’t afford. It is the presence of partners. The more our economic and political interests intersect with those of other nations, the less likely armed conflict becomes. Trade creates mutual dependence. Alliances distribute the burden. Diplomacy resolves disputes before they require soldiers.

NATO has kept the peace in Europe for 75 years — not because the U.S. acted alone, but because it built and maintained a credible collective deterrent. The same logic applies in the Pacific, where alliances with Japan, South Korea, and Australia provide a far more efficient and legitimate basis for regional stability than unilateral U.S. force projection ever could.

Agreements, once made, must be kept. When the United States withdraws from treaties, abandons trade commitments, or signals to allies that its word is conditional, it does not project strength. It creates a vacuum. Others fill it. The damage done to U.S. credibility by walking away from multilateral agreements — the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal — and by openly questioning commitments to NATO allies did not make America safer. It made the world more uncertain and American leadership harder to sustain.

Maintaining the trust of allies is not a diplomatic nicety. It is a strategic asset — one that takes decades to build and can be squandered in months. A foreign policy built on reliability, clear interests, and genuine partnerships is both less costly and more effective than one that defaults to military intervention.

The future of warfare is already here

The conflict with Iran makes the stakes plain. Weeks of airstrikes — by the most technologically advanced military in history — have not neutralized Iran’s capacity. The Houthis, a non-state actor with limited resources, have demonstrated the ability to threaten U.S. naval assets and disrupt commercial shipping. This is not a failure of will. It is a structural mismatch: we are deploying 20th-century force structure against 21st-century threats.

Deterrence now depends on superiority in artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, cyber defense and offense, space resilience, and precision strike — not on maintaining hundreds of overseas bases or stockpiles of heavy equipment optimized for mid-century warfare. The U.S. maintains approximately 750 overseas military sites across more than 80 countries. Many were designed for Cold War ground-force deterrence. Static, permanent basing is increasingly expensive and vulnerable to the very asymmetric threats now confronting us.

What needs to change

A credible reform requires action on three fronts: accountability, procurement, and posture.

Accountability. The Pentagon has failed seven consecutive financial audits. The F-35 program is now projected to exceed $2 trillion in lifecycle costs — the most expensive weapons program in U.S. history. The 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force remained operative for two decades with minimal congressional reassessment. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 should be amended to require automatic sunset provisions on AUMFs after five years unless affirmatively renewed.

Procurement. Cost-plus contracts — which reimburse contractors for all allowable costs and then guarantee a profit margin — reduce every incentive to control expenses. NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program proved that fixed-price, milestone-based contracts can deliver operational capabilities at dramatically lower cost. Defense procurement should do the same.

Posture. Congress should authorize a BRAC-style overseas basing review to evaluate installations against clearly defined treaty obligations and modern strategic requirements. Permanent basing should be tied to formal defense treaties. Rotational deployments and distributed logistics networks should replace legacy fixed installations where possible.

Invest in the future, not the past

Resources should shift toward rapid innovation, software-driven capabilities, unmanned platforms, and integrated intelligence networks. Congress should direct increased funding for AI-enabled systems, require software modernization compliance, and apply cybersecurity standards uniformly across prime defense contractors to protect supply chains from systemic vulnerabilities.

A smaller, more agile, and technologically dominant force — backed by strong alliances and an active diplomatic presence — strengthens deterrence, supports partners, and protects U.S. interests without repeating the overextension that has defined the past twenty years.

Conclusion

The U.S. already possesses unmatched aggregate military capacity. A defense establishment operating at this scale should produce durable deterrence and strategic confidence. If it does not, reflexive budget increases will not solve the problem. Structural reform will.

The Houthis and Iran are not wake-up calls we can afford to ignore. They are telling us, plainly, that we are investing in the wrong things and fighting the wrong way. The future of warfare is asymmetric, distributed, and technology-driven. The future of security is built on alliances, trade, and agreements that hold.

Security requires power. Power requires stewardship. And stewardship begins with the discipline to know when not to fight.

Sources

PREVIOUS
Reform our immigration system

NEXT
Shift the debate