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| March 12, 2009 | ||||
Squaring the Pentagon |
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| Doug Bandow | ||||
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Former Antiwar.com columnist Doug Bandow writes this week in The National Interest President Barack Obama has unveiled his new budget, which proposes continued increases in military outlays. What for? The United States is spending far too much on the Pentagon. There is no more important federal role than providing for the common defense. But what is required for defense depends upon circumstances. Military requirements in 1900 differed dramatically from those in 1940 and in 1980. What are the requirements today? The latest Pentagon budget suggests that the United States is embattled and isolated, its territory threatened and its future imperiled. The Obama administration has proposed a $40 billion (8 percent) hike in military outlays in 2010 to $527.7 billion. (Counting Iraq and Afghanistan will push annual military spending up to around $700 billion.) President Obama plans to continue increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps.
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 Doug Bandow's new book is now available. Order it now. |
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Squaring the Pentagon 3/12/2009 Balancing Beijing 2/27/2009 The Asian Century 2/20/2009 Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty: The Battle Continues 2/6/2009 Diplomatic Means to Militaristic Ends 1/30/2009 Investigate and Prosecute the Bush Administration 1/23/2009 Assessing the Bush Administration: A Foreign Catastrophe at Every Turn 1/16/2009 An American City on the Euphrates: US as Iraq's Friend or Overlord? 1/9/2009 Coming Soon: The Disunited States? 1/2/2009 Peace on Earth: Once a Year? 12/26/2008 What Foreign Policy Agenda Will President Barack Obama Set? 12/19/2008 Force: The Real 'F' Word 12/12/2008 From Colony to Superpower 12/5/2008 A Return to Liberal Warmongering? Peace Advocates Must Continue the Battle 11/28/2008 Learning from John McCain's Mistakes: Supporting Aggression in the Caucasus 11/21/2008 Barack Obama Takes Charge: Time to Leave Iraq 11/14/2008 The American People Render Their Electoral Judgment: Time to Finish Off the Neoconservatives 11/7/2008 Conservative Fantasies: A World Never More Dangerous 10/31/2008 Constitutional Peril 10/24/2008 The NATO Alliance: Dangerous Anachronism 10/17/2008 Economic Collapse: The Financial Death of the US Empire 10/10/2008 America Between the Wars 10/3/2008 Time to Tell Irresponsible Allies No Thanks 9/19/2008 U.S. vs. Them 9/12/2008 The Hothead and the Finger on the Button 9/5/2008 Georgian Fantasies: Where are the Americans? 8/29/2008 The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism 8/22/2008 Washington's Laughable Lack of Self-Awareness 8/15/2008 Which China Will We See? 8/8/2008 Staying Out of Iraq Was the Truest Test for Any Prez Wannabe 8/1/2008 The Lion and the Unicorn 7/25/2008 John McCain: The Candidate of God – Mars, the God of War 7/18/2008 Exit Iraq, and Leave No Bases Behind 7/11/2008 What Does China Think? 7/4/2008 Turning the Recurring Joke of a New European Defense Policy into Reality 6/27/2008 Strengthening the US-South Korea Alliance: For What? 6/20/2008 The Cult of the Presidency 6/13/2008 Waging War Only When Necessary 6/6/2008 Heroic Sacrifices for Foolish Causes: Memorial Days Past and Present 5/30/2008 Ain't My America 5/23/2008 This Time, Avoid the Lebanese Quagmire 5/16/2008 Another Needless Confrontation 5/9/2008 Christianity and War 5/2/2008 Inconvenient Truths About John McCain 4/25/2008 Iraq: Tell Us How This Ends 4/11/2008 Reclaiming Conservatism 4/4/2008 Crisis Postponed? 3/28/2008 John McCain: Blowing Up the World at 3am? 3/21/2008 Mr. Adams's Last Crusade 3/14/2008 Turning China into the Next Big Enemy 3/7/2008 Make America's Policy of Promiscuous Intervention the Issue in November 2/29/2008 No End in Sight: Iraq's Descent into Chaos 2/22/2008 Operation Iraqi Occupation: A Decade, Century, or More? 2/15/2008 Election 2008: What's a Peacenik to Do? 2/8/2008 The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration 2/1/2008 Korean Troubles Old and New: Time to Bring the Troops Home 1/25/2008 The Great Defense Budget Black Hole 1/18/2008 Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary 1/11/2008 Misguided Meddling in Pakistan 1/4/2008 Michael Huckabee: Foreign Policy Moderate? 12/28/2007 The Forgotten Man 12/21/2007 Embarrassed to Explain US Foreign Policy 12/14/2007 Creating Crisis: Another War in the Balkans? 12/7/2007 Khrushchev's Cold War 11/30/2007 Interest Group Foreign Policy 11/23/2007 |
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Doug Bandow is a Washington-based political writer and policy analyst and Robert A. Taft Fellow with the American Conservative Defense Alliance. He served as a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and as a senior policy analyst in the 1980 Reagan for President campaign. He has been widely published in leading newspapers and periodicals and has appeared on numerous radio and television shows. He has written and edited several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire (Xulon Press), The Korean Conundrum: America's Troubled Relations with North and South Korea (Palgrave/Macmillan, coauthor), Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World (Cato), Perpetuating Poverty: The World Bank, the IMF, and the Developing World (Cato, coeditor), and Military Manpower and Human Resources (National Defense University). His latest book is Foreign Follies (Xulon Press). |
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