Navigating the Fiscal Storm: A New Course for U.S. National Defense
The United States is sailing through turbulent waters: the post-Cold War unipolar moment has passed, and the 21st-century geopolitical landscape is shaped by sweeping social, political, and technological change. Our current defense policy, a relic from a bygone era, is an expensive and ill-fitting suit that no longer serves its purpose. The fiscal storm is upon us, and profound changes are needed to right the ship.
The Defense Elephant in the Room
The realization that the United States is in fiscal free fall is beginning to sink in. An economic crisis looms, one that bailouts and quantitative easing cannot stop. Regardless of the circumstances, profound changes in defense structure, leadership, and thinking are needed. These changes will inevitably evoke strong responses from Capitol Hill and the defense industry.
The incoming President has three choices:
- Allow service bureaucracies or external events to drive outcomes, resulting in few or no savings. This is akin to letting the ship drift aimlessly, at the mercy of the storm.
- Make marginal adjustments to the defense status quo, avoiding conflicts but achieving little change and only modest savings. This is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic—it won’t save the ship.
- Leverage the fiscal crisis to reduce overhead, streamline defense investment, and reset the force structure, increasing capability and promising major savings. This is the bold course correction needed to navigate the storm safely.
This paper argues for the third choice: leverage change to build new, better forces for the 21st century, allowing for deep spending cuts of $400-500 billion. This approach enhances the U.S. military’s competitive advantage in future warfare and improves American national security by ending open-ended interventions without attainable political-military objectives. Assuming Congress acts wisely, the resulting annualized savings can both pay down the national debt and reorient U.S. military power to new forms of warfare.
Grand Strategy and New Thinking
Grand strategy, if it exists at all, consists of avoiding conflict, not starting wars. New thinking in defense and foreign policy prioritizes diplomacy and peaceful cooperation over military power. None of America’s potential opponents, except those with nuclear weapons, pose a direct threat to the American homeland. If international terrorism and criminality remain threats, then border security and tightly controlled immigration should be the top priority in national security.
Senior military leaders and their services cannot be expected to reform themselves and fundamentally change the military status quo—a World War II/Cold War structure that is expensive, single-service focused, and vulnerable to weapons of mass destruction. Peter Drucker, when asked how to change a large business enterprise, answered, “If you want something new, you must stop doing something old. People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete.”
In line with Drucker’s guidance, the incoming President must implement a new national military strategy that diverges sharply from the last 30 years. This strategy must scale back America’s forward presence, mandate adaptation to new forms of warfare, and address the requirement to retain and develop America’s best human capital in uniform.
Toward a New National Military Strategy
For real and meaningful reductions in the current $1 trillion national defense budget to occur, national command authorities must alter the nation’s strategic focus. New national security legislation must move the posture of U.S. forces away from military interventions focused on nation-building, democratization, or alleged threats. Instead, the defense posture should focus on the Western Hemisphere, learning to avoid patterns of behavior antithetical to U.S. interests.
The following five points offer the foundation for a new national military strategy that is both affordable and sustainable within the new multipolar, international system of the 21st century:
• Defend America First: Reserve the use of American military power for defense of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. Secure U.S. borders, coastal waters, and airspace. Military power may be used to defend American citizens and identified vital strategic interests at home and abroad. However, unless the United States’ vital strategic interests or territory are directly attacked, Washington will avoid the use of force.
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Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
