Obama Weakens our Military and National Defense

Peace through strength. ~  President Ronald Reagan

Peace through Weakness. ~ Barack Hussein Obama

 In this article, I cover the assault of the Obama administration on the military and how the actions taken are weakening the national security of the United States. Budgets are being reduced, programs are being canceled, and the strategy for conducting war in Afghanistan is in disarray with indecision. President Ronald Reagan achieved peace through strength. Apparently, President Barack Obama is attempting to achieve peace through weakness. Reagan believed in “trust but verify” (Templin, 2008).  Obama apparently believes in trust and do not verify.

San Francisco Examiner Columnist James Carafano (2009), a senior research fellow for national security at the Heritage Foundation, wrote that H. Rowan Gaither Jr. advised the great men of his era. He helped found RAND, the original United States think tank. He headed the Ford Foundation and served on numerous presidential committees. Ultimately, President Dwight Eisenhower would tab him to chair an independent assessment of America’s national security needs. For once, Ike got more than he asked for. The Gaither report argued for an astronomical increase in defense spending to fight the Cold War. As if to underscore its recommendations, the Soviets launched Sputnik just weeks before Gaither delivered his report to the Oval Office.

Carafano (2009) further wrote that after watching the Soviets win the “space race,” many Americans believed Moscow’s military power might soon overtake that of the United States. Gaither’s report galvanized calls for checkbook warfare. However, Ike balked. “You can’t win a war by bankrupting yourself,” he said. Eisenhower understood that the art of great power strategy required balancing economic vitality with sound security. Today’s White House would have Americans believe they are upholding Ike’s legacy. They are not.

Additionally, Carafano (2009) wrote that 30-plus-years into the war on poverty, some 40-million Americans are still deep in poverty. The Great Society model is obviously not getting the job done. The War on Poverty has become a spending quagmire. Indeed, the White House called for spending more on welfare in one year than President George W. Bush spent on the entire Iraq war. The preamble to the Constitution stipulates that the federal government must provide for the common defense for a reason: It is job No. 1 for Washington, D.C. Ike was right in asserting that sound fiscal policies are part of providing national security. However, taking shortcuts on defense is not the answer. Pouring ever-increasing sums of money into ineffective public programs is not for the better good. Expanding domestic programs that consume the nation’s wealth at an unsustainable pace neither expands the economy nor keeps the homeland safe.

Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. ~ Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Italian philosopher & writer

References

Carafano, J. J. (2009, September 28). In guns vs. butter, butter is winning. The San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved from www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/columns/james_carafano/In-guns-vs-butter-butter-is-winning-the-challenge-62302317.html.

Templin, K. B. (2008, December 30). Trust, but verify. Air Force Print News Today. Retrieved from www.afsc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123129777.