Defense | AEIdeas

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Image Credit: David B. Gleason (Flickr) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Why these Pentagon cuts must be different

Charles Morrison | March 19, 2013, 2:31 pm

Editor’s Note: To attend AEI’s event on the defense drawdown on Thursday (3/21), please RSVP here. Despite over 18 months of assurances that sequestration was too devastating to go into effect, the Pentagon is now implementing nearly $500 billion in … read more >

Pethokoukis

Chart: Is this the US military America really wants — or needs?

James Pethokoukis | March 13, 2013, 8:33 am

The Paul Ryan-House Republican budget adds $500 billion back into the 10-year US defense budget from the CBO baseline that assumes the sequester stays in place through 2023. Yet, as the Bipartisan Policy Center points out, defense spending would still decline … read more >

Pethokoukis

The US: From warfare state to welfare state

James Pethokoukis | March 11, 2013, 4:17 pm

The Philly Fed: While about 50 percent of expenditures were devoted to national defense in the 1960s, most spending was devoted to welfare programs in 2010. Unemployment, Social Security, health, and education were just 28.9 percent of expenditures in the … read more >

Pethokoukis

Why the sequester’s defense cuts are scaring me less and less

James Pethokoukis | February 28, 2013, 12:50 pm

Over the next decade — if the current-law sequester cuts and spending caps hold — US defense spending will fall to EU-like levels. That is certainly too low if the US is to remain a global military superpower as opposed … read more >

Image Credit: Secretary of Defense (Flickr) (CC BY 2.0)

Foreign and Defense Policy, Defense

Hagel and the defense budget

Gary Schmitt | February 1, 2013, 2:15 pm

Senator Lindsey Graham’s skewering yesterday of former senator and prospective defense secretary Chuck Hagel over the latter’s comments about the “Jewish lobby” and its ability to “intimidate” members of Congress will certainly go down in the history of confirmation hearings … read more >

Economics, Pethokoukis

GOP ready to let sequester happen

James Pethokoukis | January 25, 2013, 10:23 am

Here comes the sequester. I think political analyst Dan Clifton of Strategas Research is on point: Although spending is cut heavily on the Defense industry and the cuts are across the board, Republicans seem intent on letting the sequester go through if Democrats are not willing to engage in entitlement reform given that … read more >

Foreign and Defense Policy, Defense

Don’t like Chuck Hagel’s views? Wait a few

Danielle Pletka | January 10, 2013, 9:49 am

“Courage”: A word we hear tossed around promiscuously about Chuck Hagel. About his Vietnam career? Nope. About personal travails? Nope. Chuck Hagel is a “courageous” man because he changes his mind. A lot. Bret Stephens of the WSJ was among … read more >

Foreign and Defense Policy, Defense

No fix: The cliff dive is for keeps

Mackenzie Eaglen | December 27, 2012, 11:51 am

Now that the nation is set to go over the fiscal cliff, the groundwork is being laid to ensure it plays out in slow motion. Many policymakers wrongly think that this will buy more time for Congress and the president to work out a deal retroactively later this spring. read more >

Economics, Entitlements

Just a reminder: Entitlements, not defense, are bankrupting America

Henrik Temp | December 11, 2012, 11:26 am

The next time someone tells you that the national debt or deficit requires us to drastically cut the military, remember these charts. read more >

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta, and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan E. Rice attend the dignified transfer ceremony for the U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens. Image credit: Official Secretary of Defense Flickr

Foreign and Defense Policy

Ask the scholars: Who’s on deck for State and Defense?

Brittany French | November 15, 2012, 1:21 pm

There’s been a ton of talk in the media over who President Obama will appoint as successors to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Rumors are flying that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry … read more >

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