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Defense - The Big Stick

Defense is the third gargantuan government program. It cost the average American household $4,626 in 2006. That's $548 billion to fund the Department of Defense and ancillary functions. Defense's purpose is more fundamental than providing education or retirement. At root, defense is about physical safety from foreign military assault and upholding Americans' right to self-government.

While the benefits of effective defense are profound, they are even more difficult to quantify financially than the other two big-money government endeavors.

We have successfully protected US soil. Military incursions on American territory have been extraordinarily rare. The Brits burned Washington in 1814, Pancho Villa raided Arizona in 1916, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, and Al Qaeda hit two major cities in 2001. America has been remarkably free of the ravages of war with foreigners on home turf.

Defense: Is the Mission Too Big?

The mission of US defense has grown far beyond the narrow goal of defending American soil. American interests are so intertwined with those of other countries as to seem inseparable.

Massive 20th century conflicts in Europe left the American homeland virtually unscathed, but first pulled the US into critical supporting roles. Then military success pushed her into leadership. America assisted the defeat of Fascism and then led the victory against expansionist Communism. It has nurtured seedling democracies and others under a relatively reliable US-provided security umbrella.

One can make the argument that the US exports security. Other countries scrimp on defense spending because the US is a credible guarantor of peace in Europe, Asia, and much of the Middle East. The Americas fall under a less formal, but reasonably effective US security canopy, too.

Sub-Saharan Africa is outside the umbrella. Africa's recent history of military conflict may be a reflection of US inattention. Europe historically has been more involved in Africa, but it does not seem to have either the military heft or the political will to guarantee peace more effectively.

On the flipside, opponents maintain the US is not exporting stability and guaranteeing peace, but exporting oppression and supporting an unjust economic system. Such voices argue that the US is a repressive influence.

Is defense spending cost-effective for American taxpayers? The emotional fog that quickly descends on the topic of US defense seems more dense and blinding even than that which shrouds the other big programs.

Arguments Against the US Military

The case against defense spending first: One popular argument is that a smaller defense budget means less military conflict. This body of opinion believes that the US uses its military power heedlessly to expand its influence, and to profit large American corporations.

A component of this argument is that the US is militarily aggressive, and pursues military power in its bid to build a malignant American empire. America has caused more damage and made more enemies via this policy than it would have caused with a hands-off approach. Advocates point to radical Islam and the editorial pages of newspapers both domestic and overseas as evidence of the enmity against America.

Vocal anti-military voices believe that the expansion of Communism should not have been opposed militarily, because Communism posed no threat to the US. A somewhat different perspective holds that Communism is a better system than the mixed capitalist/socialist economy of the US, and therefore should not be defended against.

While American pacifists have a long history, the Vietnam War is the touchstone of this group. This perspective asserts that America cruelly defended a corrupt, incompetent and unpopular puppet regime against the earnest, honest, and humanitarian North Vietnam of Uncle Ho Chi Minh.

The world would be more free from oppression, have less state-sponsored violence and terrorism, and generally be more peaceful and prosperous if the US did not use military power.

Adherents to these views believe that most, if not all, of the U.S defense budget is an abominable waste and is more harmful than merely "burning the money." For these folks the US defense budget cannot be seen as cost-effective.

Arguments For A Muscular US Military

On the pro-defense side, the case has been made that a muscular US defense in the 1940s and 1950s built the "Pax Americana" of the post-World War II period. Fascism was roundly defeated and Western Europe's militarism declined markedly. East Asia's nationalist tensions were held in check by the US security umbrella and paved the way for rapid development of democracy and prosperity.

Communism largely was contained from the mid-1970s onward. American military involvement in Vietnam resulted in a US defeat, but after taking South Vietnam and then Cambodia, Communist imperialism largely was a spent force. US military strength contained the USSR and should receive at least partial credit for that country's largely peaceful self-disassembly. US military power also tempered Red Chinese ambitions for Taiwan and in the South China Sea.

This viewpoint asserts that more recently, US military strength made critical contributions to rolling back Saddam Hussein in Desert Storm, Serbia in the former Yugoslavia, the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and likely deterred Libya, Iran, North Korea, Syria and pre-2003 Iraq from nefarious activity. The US military and its allies are responsible for overthrowing a particularly heinous dictatorship in Iraq. If nation-building efforts there and in Afghanistan are successful, the military contribution to fostering additional fledgling democracies will have been significant.

Holders of these views are inclined to believe the US defense budget has been a major contributor to the peace and rapidly increased prosperity around the globe over the past 60 years. They likely deem defense spending as cost-effective for American taxpayers and a bargain for free peoples across the globe.

A third powerful view asserts that strong defense is valuable but that other countries should do more of it themselves. This view is not anti-military in principle, as is the first viewpoint above. However, it asserts that America should avoid overseas entanglements. The world should sort out its own difficulties.

When military conflicts arise, the US should remain aloof. These folks support a homeland defense, but little or no involvement in NATO, SEATO and other military partnerships.

Advocates of this view do not believe it is in the interest of the US to promote democracy, guarantee peace among other countries, help fight dictatorships, or battle for the broad interests of prosperity. This view embraces spending to defend the nation's borders, but no more.

Defense spending can be an emotional issue, but fascinating, clearly important, and worthy of dispassionate examination from the taxpayers' perspective.