You Decide

… that defense is a necessity, with many benefits for both the United States and the rest of the world?

From Pearl Harbor to 9/11, history proves that we have to defend ourselves against attacks from outside aggressors. America’s enemies today are real and varied, which is one of the costs of enjoying our position as the world’s dominant superpower. Our military is not a luxury, but a vital necessity if we are to continue to defend our way of life against people who seek to destroy it.

Being the world’s only superpower also means being called upon to take a lead role in solving problems and helping others, whether we like it or not. And again, a robust military is vital, both to back up our diplomatic efforts abroad and as a weapon of last resort — often to the benefit of not just the United States, but other countries as well. For example, action taken by NATO in the Balkans in the 1990s helped to control a situation that threatened to lead to widespread genocide and a larger war in Europe. This operation would not have been possible without the U.S. military’s massive contribution of manpower and advanced weaponry.

As well as defending our families and homes and helping to make the world a safer place, the money we spend on our military can benefit our society in other, unseen ways. Perhaps the most dramatic of these are the advances in science and technology made by people working in the defense sector.

Examples range from nuclear power (the world’s first reactor was built at the University of Chicago during the Second World War as part of the atomic bomb project; nuclear reactors now account for almost a fifth of America’s electricity-generating capacity), to the GPS satellites that power the satellite navigation unit in your car (the system was originally conceived of as a purely military project, but it has since been opened up for civilian use worldwide).

Perhaps even more dramatic, we have the military to thank for developing some of the most important technology that now drives the Internet. For example, the world’s first packet-switching network, ARPANET, a precursor of the World Wide Web, was developed in the late 1960s by the U.S. Department of Defense. (“Packet switching” means breaking down large pieces of data into smaller chunks that are transmitted separately and then reassembled at their destination; it is the basis for nearly all digital communication today.)

So ask yourself: Would you be able to read this without the Internet, without nuclear energy and without a military willing to defend the American way?

…what a difference even a small proportion of defense spending could make if it were diverted into health care or education or even how it could reduce taxes?

Our government has its priorities all wrong. Sure, there is a need for military spending, but it has come to dwarf nearly everything else in the federal budget. For example, the $623 billion combined defense budget is more than 10 times as much as the $62.6 billion we are spending on education this year. And spending on defense is also higher than on such important areas as social security and health.

Compare this with the United Kingdom, our main ally in the Iraq war: There, the proportions are reversed, with a $64 billion military budget representing less than half the $160 billion allotted for education and a mere third of the $216 billion spent on health care.

And our disproportionate defense spending comes when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is projecting this year’s federal deficit to top $400 billion, piling further pressure on this country’s $9 trillion national debt. Surely it makes more sense to cut defense spending in an effort to reduce loans that will cost us $244 billion in interest payments this year alone.

Then there is the argument that our strong military capability is necessary in order to avert humanitarian crises. Setting aside the fact that this is difficult to swallow at a time of war over oil but inaction in Darfur, is sending our troops really the best answer? Surely it is better — both in terms of effectiveness and cost — to help local allies to do the work for us. Just as the ultimate aim is to have Iraq policed by Iraqi forces, African Union soldiers are better at dealing with realities on the ground in their own continent, and so on. Thus, we can fund a solution at a fraction of the cost it would take to send our own troops and use the money we save elsewhere.

In other words, instead of having our troops fighting other people’s wars or trying to win unwinnable conflicts in the Middle East, we should be spending more money fixing some of the problems we have in education, health and housing at home.