Military Spending Madness

Albert Einstein once defined madness as doing the same thing over and over again in the anticipation of seeing a different result.

To that end, Barack Obama and this Congress are in the process of repeating the mistakes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton with respect to military spending.

Following the failure of the Vietnam War, Jimmy Carter and his dominant Democratic Congress decided to slash military spending. This was despite the growing threat from the Soviet Union. When Ronald Reagan came into office, he rebuilt the military and many believe that this was the single-most contributing factor to the collapse of that communist block of countries. In essence, Russia's communist/socialist society couldn't compete, economically, with our capitalist-supported growth in military strength.

Then, following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., Bill Clinton and his very supportive, Democratic congressional majority decided to, once again, slash military spending. Bill Clinton called it the "Peace Dividend" and slashed our troop strength by 30 percent or by 600,000 service members. Then, 9/11 occurred during the following Bush's presidency and we went to war in Afghanistan and, ultimately, Iraq. We know from both of these conflicts that more troops were absolutely needed to maintain the peace but we were being hobbled by the past reductions of the Clinton Administration. The "surge" proved that more was better. But success in Afghanistan suffered because there weren't enough total troops to support a surge-like effort in both countries at the same time.

Now enter Obama.

Once again there is a move to minimize our military's spending. Cuts are being planned in missile defense, F-22's, the new Marine One helicopters, and a variety of other weapons systems. Interestingly, though, it appears troop strength will be increased and this is a direct slap to the past reductions by the Clinton Administration (See Full Story).

Surely, some of these programs, especially the new Marine helicopter, are wasteful and will not necessarily make us any more secure. But, to cut out 2 billion dollars for the deployment of missile defense is just penny-wise and pound-foolish. What is even more insane is that we announced the missile defense cut at the very same time that North Korea launched another weapons-capable missile. In February, Iran was able to launch a satellite into space using their long range missile capability. How long do you think it will be before either Iran or North Korea hands that technology over to the likes of Hugo Chavez? Or, worse yet, a nuke and missile system to Al Qaeda?

It just seems we never learn from our past and we are again buying into the madness that Einstein once defined. Obama's sole focus, now, are on his social programs. But, the neighborhood we now live in is actually more dangerous than ever before. It is if we are living in a bad neighborhood, buying iPods and Big Screen TV's, while our windows are left wide open and doors unlocked.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not defeated. Iran and North Korea are threatening to be serious nuclear powers; while developing missile-delivery capabilities. Both Iran and North Korea are known peddlers of weapons technologies. China is spending billions to be a dominant world military power. Russia is threatening to rise once again by trying to rebuild its military. Amid all this, we are cutting back. That is truly madness!