I guess so, but
Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Defense Spending
By Gary Schmitt
National Security Outlook
November 2006
The defense budget has grown appreciably since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But too little of the increase has gone to purchase new equipment or to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps. The result has been a “hollow buildup” that makes it increasingly difficult for the U.S. military to carry out its part of America’s national security strategy.
To read the full text of this article, please open the attached Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, or visit: http://www.aei.org/publication25097.
Ben's response:
The U.S. has more military might than any nation in the world, or all put together.
If it may be imperfect but it's still doing the best and trying to better.
We probably can do better
posted by Ben Wattenberg at 8:46 PM
1 Comments:
Ben:
I am not so sure about our dominance. We certainly spend a lot more money that anyone else, but what we often get for that money is more fancy offices in the Washington DC metropolitan area, larger McMansions in McLean, and bigger/more expensive imported cars in the parking garages near K street.
When it costs us a quarter of a billion for an airplane and China a few million, the measure of budget expenditures on defense mean little. Do not discount the manufacturing ability of the Chinese - they have rapidly moved up the technological chain from textiles to iPods, PCs and flat screen TVs. (Those, by the way, include the most important components of many weapons systems.)
BTW - it is nice to read the blog of another modest thinker, even if we disagree on some aspects of current politics.
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