Monday, November 29, 2010

Victor Davis Hanson's "In Defense of Defense"

Mr. Hanson wraps up his recent article in National Review magazine with the line,"A healthy economy is the best national security measure of all." Many would accept this as axiomatic, but in today's deficit and budgetary climate nothing, as they say, is off the table. Many in government and the public will be tempted to see the defense budget as an easy target for sizable cuts.

The Obama administration has added about $ 1.3 trillion in annual budget deficits in the last two years. There will be considerable pressure to off-set this with cuts in defense spending even though we have thousands of troops engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, North Korea is killing South Koreans and Iran is full speed ahead with its nuclear weapons program.

Mr. Hanson points out that can and has left the U.S. as being perceived as weak and vulnerable. Our unpreparedness leading up to World War Two and the decline of the military in the post-Vietnam era proved to be damaging to our interests. It would be pure folly to not heeds these examples in the era of the Global War on Terror.