The US Has the Military Spending It Needs
Is tomorrow’s world bipolar or multipolar? That, surprisingly, should determine America’s defense budgets.
Shadows of a new Cold War?
Photographer: China Photos via Getty Images
Washington’s cognoscenti have always been divided over US defense spending, but the gap is once again widening and the arguments are changing.
The Pentagon and its industrial and political ecosystem generally believe that America woefully underfunds its military, compromising its deterrence of, and war-waging prowess against, the main adversary for the foreseeable future, namely China. Strategists on the opposing side think that reasoning is not only overwrought but intellectually flawed, since a proper analysis of geopolitics would suggest that US defense spending may be just about right (if often inefficient and misdirected) or even excessive.