Skip to main content

Missile Defense Cuts: Striking the Balance Between National Security & Fiscal Responsibility


By: Ryan Jaroncyk, THL Contributor

According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, our nation's missile defense budget is being slashed by 16%. Of particular concern is the fact that our ground-based program is being cut by an even more substantial 35%.

Todd Harrison, analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, stated: "no replacement or replenishment program could result in too few missiles to provide a basic level of protection, especially as these missiles are depleted over time from regular test launches."

These steep cuts, particularly in the anti-ballistic missile program on U.S. soil, put the delicate balance between fiscal responsibility and national security concerns in the cross-hairs. Here are some potential solutions:

1. Increase funding for national missile defense, but cut back on overseas missile defense systems. Wealthy nations such as Japan and South Korea possess ample financial resources and technological expertise to provide their own missile defense. We should focus on upgrading and expanding our own technology- off our coasts and on our soil.

2. Reduce the size of our overseas military presence. With troops and other military-related personnel in approximately 130 countries, we're spending over $500 billion a year. Instead of policing the globe, perhaps we could station our troops in only the most strategic locations, saving us billions to spend on national missile defense and pay down trillions of dollars in debt.

3. Cut back on foreign aid. Instead of giving billions to dictatorial regimes around the world, why not utilize a portion of this savings to ramp up national missile defense?

4. Base missile defense funding on test performance. Those systems that perform consistently and successfully should receive further funding. Those that do not should be axed.

5. Make national missile defense a high priority in a balanced budget. One of the Federal government's most explicit, enumerated powers in the Constitution is to defend America. Spending trillions of dollars to bail out corrupt, inefficient, wasteful, and poorly managed Wall Street firms is not.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of solutions, but it can serve as a launching point for further discussion. How can America successfully defend itself from legitimate, existential threats without breaking the bank? What are some of your ideas?

Popular posts from this blog

Obama keeps pushing the bipartisan religion of interventionism

Michael Scheuer is deadly accurate - foreign interventionism is a bipartisan religion (or disease, whichever you prefer). Too often, I believe, Americans think about Washington’s interventionism only as the actual physical intervention of U.S. military forces abroad in places where no U.S. interest is at risk. That activity certainly is intervention, but President Obama’s despicable decision last week to have his administration leak intelligence claiming that Israel has concluded an agreement with the government of Azerbaijan to allow its use of Azeri airfields for an air strike on Iran is just as much an unwarranted intervention by the United States government. Readers of this blog will know that I carry no brief for Israel, that I believe it is a state that is irrelevant to U.S. national interests, and one whose U.S.-citizen supporters are disloyal to America and involved in activities that compromise U.S. security and corrupt the U.S. political system. That said, Israel — l...

How Thorough a Brainwashing

Saw this on Facebook: Left this comment: It's more thorough of a wash job than that. They don't just believe they are not brainwashed, the question has never occurred to them and as long as they keep reading TIME and watching MTV, it's *impossible* for the question to occur to them. Oh brave new world, that has such people in it. EDIT: And one more thing-- don't ever stop considering what questions it is currently impossible to occur to you . This is what I've been thinking about a lot lately and I'm worried just how large and numerous my own blindspots are. The only solution is to be as intellectually curious as possible. To learn voraciously. To read things that challenge us. To read things that are hard for us to understand and then try to understand them. To expose ourselves to ideas far removed from our present culture and place on the timeline. Read old books. Read foreign books. Turn off the TV. You have already absorbed its biases and blindspots. ...

How To Gain More Twitter Followers

Earlier today, I wrote : "My goal is to write a book before the end of March. My goal is to spend no more than a week from start to publication, spending as much time as I need in order to get it done during that week. My goal is to give it away to you for free here on HumbleLibertarian.com. What's a goal you have? Something you may have been putting off for years? Something you could accomplish in one month if you were determined? If it's near-term enough of a goal, and specific enough of a goal, and you share it in the comments below, feel free to tell me how I can help you and I'll do whatever I can. If it's a libertarian / news / politics-related goal, my manner of help would be easy to determine. I could promote it, introduce you to someone via email, (etc.). If it's something apolitical like quit smoking cigarettes, start exercising, learn guitar, start a business, gain more Twitter followers, learn another language, eat a paleo diet, or...
–––As Featured On–––