December 20, 2021
Does the U.S. Defense Budget Match Its Global Commitments?
The United States has ignored difficult policy choices for too long and failed to deliver a defense budget to match its priorities. There isn't much time left to address both those issues.
by Peter Huessy
Deterrence is the art of preventing enemies from acting against the interests of the United States and its allies. It is most often referenced with regards to the nuclear balance. The United States’ nuclear arsenal and its NATO allies deterred the Soviet Union from using conventional force to invade Western Europe during the Cold War. The U.S. “nuclear umbrella” or extended nuclear deterrent worked for more than seven decades and remains today a mainstay of U.S. policy in Europe.
American security arrangements in the Western Pacific are less formal, but the United States has promised—consistent with its Constitutional procedures—to assist and defend Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the Republic of China from aggression, whether from North Korea or China. The United States maintains a series of bases and a military presence in the region, in addition to the nuclear deterrent protecting its Pacific allies.
Though the growing threats from Russia and China over Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively, are much in the news, less discussed are the threats the United States has created of its own accord that make it difficult to provide security.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/does-us-defense-budget-match-its-global-commitments-198053
