National Security

"We should cut our military budget by about 75%, withdraw our troops from most of the rest of the world, get out of Iraq, and start an Apollo-style project to change our energy use away from fossil and bio-fuels."

You may ask, how does cutting the military budget by 75% or more support national security?

It does because our current level of spending on the tools of war is unsustainable. Currently we spend about half of the entire world's so-called "defense" budget. If we cut our military budget 75%, we would still have the largest, best-equipped and best-trained military in the world, but we could divert $300 billion or so into balancing the budget and supporting our crumbling civil and civic infrastructures. Every day we continue to pour our wealth and resources into a well of international violence increases our negative karma, delays our transition to a more sustainable energy infrastructure, and makes such a transition less fiscally feasible.

A quote I read recently goes something like this: "I'd rather lose in service to a cause that will eventually win, than win in service to a cause that will eventually lose." I don't remember who said it, and I don't agree in all situations. (I'd rather be on the side that is ethically and morally right, in service to a cause that is just, regardless of who wins in the end.) However, that quote applies perfectly to my concern about national security. Our current course of imperial occupation and unrestrained military spending ensures that we will win any pitched battle against any military anywhere, but simultaneously ensures that we will eventually lose the occupation of Iraq, the "war on terror," and our place in the world.

Besides, it is morally and ethically wrong to dump that amount of resources into the weapons of war – ever – but particularly when children in our own country are going hungry and without health care, and homeless people clog the streets and crowd the bridges (many of them in dire need of mental and physical care), and our leaders are torturing folks they guess might be our enemies.