The U.S. Defense Budget: Inertia Over Strategy

Eric Gomez andJordan CohenThe FY22 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) recently inched closer to becoming law when the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) voted to send its version to the full House. The HASC version of the bill authorizes $24 billion morethan the Biden administration ’s request and follows the lead of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), which passed a billauthorizing $25 billion more than the administration ’s request in late July.The HASC and SASC authorization hikes are a product of strategic inertia in Washington thatdrives defense spending ever upwards without any sense of priority or focus. The Biden administration was right to end the war in Afghanistan, but this nod to restraint does not make a coherent strategy. The administration ’sinterim strategic guidance document released earlier this year talks about “setting clear priorities within our defense budget,” but the list of things that the administration expects the military achieve is still far too long.The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan ought to prompt reflection on two decades of defense strategy that achieved little benefit at high costs. Military power can be useful, but the U.S. experiences in Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror more broadly demonstrate the limitations of what the military can achieve. The U.S. military did not fail in Afghanistan or other Global War on Terror theaters because it did not have enough resources....
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs