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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s confidence must be shaken after leaving Washington without the approval of more US military funding for his country amid the ongoing war with Russia.

Although President Joe Biden has stressed the need for Congress to continue supporting Ukraine, Republican opposition to the administration’s request for more than $60 billion in emergency supplemental funding has been stiff. As the GOP demands the passage of stringent border policies from Democrats in exchange for backing the military aid package, the future remains pretty bleak for Ukraine. Even if the two parties end up striking a deal, it’s likely that each subsequent aid package will only face increasing resistance and more roadblocks.…  Seguir leyendo »

During the 2020 presidential race, then candidate Joe Biden complained that U.S. President Donald Trump had “abandoned all fiscal discipline when it comes to defense spending”. Unsurprisingly, Biden’s first budget—announced in 2021—was a dramatic about-face in fiscal priorities. The proposal increased spending for virtually every federal department except the Pentagon. Congress, for its part, considered Biden’s proposal so deficient that it added an additional $29 billion for defense.

Despite congressional pushback and mounting global threats, Biden’s new budget, announced last week, continues down the same dangerous path. Confronting emerging international dangers will require a dramatic increase in Washington’s spending, and the administration’s proposal is insufficient.…  Seguir leyendo »

China's response to the coronavirus outbreak has provided a pretext for some in Washington to spar even more openly with Beijing. Top White House advisor Peter Navarro accused the Chinese government of exploiting the pandemic to advance its interests, and one senator even claimed that China is "trying to sabotage" America's search for a vaccine and is bent on "world domination." Steve Bannon, the mastermind of President Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, attributed the death of George Floyd, in large part, to China's misdeeds.

This cartoonish depiction of villainy might be dismissed as campaign season hyperbole if it weren't informing real policy proposals.…  Seguir leyendo »

U.S. Army soldiers stand in formation during military exercises in April with Bulgaria’s army at the Novo Selo military ground in Bulgaria. Nikolay Doychinov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

So far, the German response to Donald J. Trump’s election has been predictable, and predictably loud: Politicians and pundits are rattling on about how Europe needs to bolster its defenses, speeches they have been giving for years.

The doomsayers have a point, of course. President-elect Trump has repeatedly called into question Article 5 of the NATO agreement, the promise to regard an attack on one of its members as an attack on all. And he has demanded that Europe, and the rest of America’s allies, start paying more for his country’s defensive umbrella.

He’s not the first to say it. Leading American politicians have repeatedly told their counterparts over here that the days of American generosity in burden-sharing will soon be over.…  Seguir leyendo »

This summer’s dramatic global events — from the rise of the Islamic State, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, war between Hamas and Israel, violent confrontations and air strikes in Libya and continued tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in the East and South China seas — have reminded us all that the United States faces perhaps the most complex and volatile security environment since World War II.

This realization has led to repeated calls for U.S. leadership to sustain the rules-based international order that underpins U.S. security and prosperity. But scant attention has been paid to ensuring that we have a robust and ready military, able to deter would-be aggressors, reassure allies and ensure that any president, current or future, has the options he or she will need in an increasingly dangerous world.…  Seguir leyendo »

Americans spend about $2,300 per head on defense, including the defense of Europe. Europeans spend $550 per head on their own defense. (Helen Farrer / EPA)

This month in Poland, President Obama offered $1 billion in military assistance to address our NATO allies' anxiety about a resurgent Kremlin. Labeled the European Reassurance Initiative, this boosts NATO's budget by a mere 0.1%. It was nonetheless received with enthusiasm by European partners happy to have a Band-Aid to cover up an unpleasant truth: For decades, our NATO allies have so underinvested in creating their own security forces that when Vladimir Putin moved 40,000 Russian troops to Ukraine's border, they had no capacity to respond.

The crisis in Ukraine reminds us of dangers that are too easy to forget. Obama missed an opportunity to borrow a line from President Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address.…  Seguir leyendo »

The major general “was visibly agitated about the long delay” at the airport, the witness said. “He appeared drunk and, in the public area, talked loudly about the importance of his position as commander of the only operational nuclear force in the world and that he saves the world from war every day.” The inspector general’s report quoted the witness as saying that upon arriving in Moscow, “again, he started in on the very loud discussions about being in charge of the only operationally deployed force and saving the world . . . and then he also started telling the story of about how he has the worst morale of any airmen in the Air Force.”…  Seguir leyendo »

The constantly recycled line that the United States spends as much on defense as the next 13 nations combined seems a comforting statistic for those looking for strategic reassurance in a world fraught with potential dangers.

Yet in the world’s most economically dynamic region, the Asia-Pacific, Washington’s military dominance is being challenged on a daily basis in the form of an arms buildup that within 10 years or less could potentially force America out of the Pacific entirely unless concrete action is taken.

During the past two decades, the People's Republic of China has undertaken an extraordinary military modernization and that is transforming the global balance of power.…  Seguir leyendo »

Existen dos maneras muy distintas de examinar el anuncio hecho por el presidente Obama en el Pentágono, a comienzos de este año, sobre los importantes recortes previstos en el presupuesto de defensa y, por consiguiente, el volumen de las fuerzas armadas de Estados Unidos.

La primera perspectiva es la del «hombre económico racional». Las reducciones del gasto militar son muy naturales y, de hecho, eran previsibles. Dado el patético estado actual de los déficits federales de Estados Unidos, y dada la necesidad de contención fiscal general, es justo que el ejército estadounidense asuma su parte en la nueva era de austeridad.…  Seguir leyendo »

Leon Panetta may still be savoring the successful operation against Osama bin Laden in a month or two. But as the incoming defense secretary, he will have a major challenge of a different order: presiding over a defense build-down.

President Obama’s proposal to reduce the projected defense budget by $400 billion over the next 12 years underlines a reality that is driven by concern over deficits, debt and a declining interest in having the United States act as global cop. And his proposal is only the opening bid on how far down defense budgets could go.

While outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates reacted to Obama’s decision as though it had created a crisis in defense planning, the reductions that Panetta must carry out are inevitable, even necessary.…  Seguir leyendo »

Cuando los Estados Unidos abordan la decisión de aumentar su autoimpuesto límite máximo para la deuda, conviene que recordemos por qué es tan grande su deuda pública y la importancia que ello tiene. Con el ascenso del Tea Party, los republicanos pueden protestar contra el aumento del límite máximo de deuda, pero es probable que den marcha atrás al final, porque, entre otras cosas, las guerras financiadas con deuda –por ejemplo, en el Afganistán y en el Iraq– son más fáciles de defender que las guerras que se pagan en el momento y que los votantes deben financiar por adelantado con los impuestos.…  Seguir leyendo »

Of all of this year’s seismic shifts in the deficit and debt debate, putting U.S. defense budgets on the table is perhaps the most significant.

President Obama’s deficit commission, reinforced by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Rivlin-Domenici panel, has added military spending to the conversation on spending cuts. And newly-ascendant Republicans have affirmed that fiscal discipline must extend to the defense budget.

The U.S. Department of Defense, however, has not yet acknowledged this shift. On the contrary, Defense Secretary Robert Gates blasted the deficit commission’s report as “math, not strategy.”

More disciplined budgeting will first require the United States to acknowledge that we Americans are more secure today than at any point since 1945.…  Seguir leyendo »

Last week the National Archives released a trove of drafts and notes that shed new light on President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address, in which he warned America about the “military-industrial complex.”

The release comes just in time for the speech’s 50th anniversary next month. And so while scholars and historians use these documents to scrutinize the evolution of the speech’s famous phrase, it’s worth asking a broader question: does America still have a military-industrial complex, and should we be as worried about it as Eisenhower was?

By one measure, the answer to the first question is yes. Over the past 50 years there have been very few years in which the United States has spent less on the military than it did the year before.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Post asked analysts and members of Congress whether the federal government should cut defense spending. Below are responses from Maya MacGuineas, Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, Ron Paul, Mackenzie Eaglen, Jane Harman and Rob Andrews.

Defense cuts are not only on the table; they will almost certainly be part of any budget deal. Defense Secretary Robert Gates helpfully opened the door when he highlighted the need for savings, and now defense has become one of the areas of the budget with the strongest potential for a coalition of strange bedfellows, ranging from policymakers on the far left to the far right, all favoring cuts.…  Seguir leyendo »

The prospect of an exit from Iraq and Afghanistan has sparked rumblings on Capitol Hill that it's time to cut the defense budget. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says, "I'm pretty certain cuts are coming -- in defense and the whole budget." Defense Secretary Bob Gates is already pushing to cancel some big-ticket programs and to wring savings out of the existing budget.

If there were ever evidence that it's impossible to learn from history -- or at least that it's difficult for politicians to do so -- this is it. Before they rush to cut defense spending, lawmakers should consider the consequences of previous attempts to cash in on a "peace dividend."…  Seguir leyendo »

With the fixation on shrinking the budget deficit, why is over $700 billion in annual defense spending almost always off-limits for discussion? The mainstream media rarely explore possible cuts in the nation's largest discretionary spending item, and most politicians refuse to even consider the issue.

That's why the bipartisan Sustainable Defense Task Force's June 11 report recommending over $1 trillion in Pentagon cuts over the next 10 years is an indication that some sanity might arrive inside the Beltway. Convened by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) -- who raised this issue in an early-2009 op-ed for The Nation -- along with Democratic Sen.…  Seguir leyendo »

Robert Gates, the secretary of defense, has proposed a budget overhaul that will go a long way toward improving our national security, but more can be done to meet his long-term goal: creating the right military for the 21st century.

Not since Henry Stimson’s tenure from 1940 to ’45 has a defense secretary been faced to the same degree with simultaneously fighting a war and carrying out far-reaching reforms. Yet there are three major changes Mr. Gates should add to his agenda, and they deserve President Obama’s support.

First, the Air Force should be eliminated, and its personnel and equipment integrated into the Army, Navy and Marine Corps.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pentagon officials have leaked word that the Office of Management and Budget has ordered a 10 percent cut in defense spending for the coming fiscal year, giving Defense Secretary Robert Gates a substantially smaller budget than he requested. Here are five reasons President Obama should side with Gates over the green-eyeshade boys.

· It doesn't make fiscal sense to cut the defense budget when everyone is scrambling for measures to stimulate the economy. Already, under the current Pentagon budget, defense contractors will begin shutting down production lines in the next couple of years -- putting people out of work. Rather than cutting, the Obama administration ought to be increasing defense spending.…  Seguir leyendo »

Can Barack Obama afford to keep the Defense Department’s budget at the extraordinary levels of the last seven years? With the spreading recession, the answer is no. Can he make cuts without jeopardizing national security and the safety of our troops? The answer is yes — but only if we demand that contractors, the four services and lawmakers make their own interests a lower priority and build a stronger military based on joint-service cooperation and real innovation.

In 2008, the United States has spent nearly $700 billion on defense. That is more than twice as much as the next five militaries in the world combined.…  Seguir leyendo »

Un total de 623 millardos de dólares. Tal es la cifra astronómica del gasto militar estadounidense previsto para el año 2008, que incluye, además del presupuesto del Pentágono, el coste adicional de la guerra de Iraq. Sobrepasa en un 10,5% al del año anterior y en un 62% al del año 2001. Sin embargo, los jefes de Estado Mayor de los tres ejércitos se quejan de escasez de fondos para dotar adecuadamente el sistema de comunicación por satélite de alta tecnología Tsat y deploran la merma de navíos de guerra. Aunque, ante tal situación, no hay más remedio que preguntar: ¿pero qué presupuesto les parecería entonces aceptable?…  Seguir leyendo »