Security: Drop Pretension to Supremacy

With the Senate close to voting on the defense authorization bill, Congress is poised to pass the largest military budget since World War II — roughly $550 billion, excluding funds for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Citing the need for austerity, Pentagon officials have a goal of 1 percent real growth in the Defense Department budget over the next decade. Not exactly a revolution of fiscal discipline.

Hawks and defense industry trade groups say this spending is essential to U.S. security. But much of Washington's military spending is geared toward defending others and toward the dubious proposition that global stability depends on U.S. military deployments.

Washington confuses what it wants from its military (global primacy or hegemony) with what it needs (safety).

For more, see Drop Pretension to Supremacy by Benjamin H. Friedman and Christopher Preble, September 21, 2010 at Cato Institute.