Center for Defense Information, Washington, D.C. Harry Browne for President

Strong National Offense, But A Weak National Defense
Hector, the United States military is way more than ready to respond to any credible threat to our national security.

At $305 billion, the U.S. military budget request for FY'01 is more than five times larger than that of Russia, the second largest spender.

It is more than twenty-two times as large as the combined spending of the seven countries traditionally identified by the Pentagon as our most likely adversaries (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria).

What we have is by far the world's most awesome offensive military machine, one which politicians feel free to use all over the world to trying to interfere in other people's lives, with dismal consequences.

The United States went into Panama to stop drug-dealing -- but it continues unabated there. We went into the Philippines and Haiti to stop corruption, but it's as widespread as ever. In Rwanda, Somalia, Iraq, Nicaragua, Libya, Bosnia -- wherever our politicians have intervened -- we have succeeded only in killing a lot of Americans, wasting billions of American dollars, killing masses of innocent foreigners, and for the most part sowing hatred for America.

There will always be evil people and dictators. Republicans and Democrats counter them by going into their countries and killing innocent people who mostly hate these cruel rulers as much as we do. Is that a smart way to handle the problem? Shouldn't we be looking for a better method of dealing with trouble?

Those who say they want America to impose peace and democracy throughout the world don't seem to recognize that what they mean by "America" is the federal government -- the same one that bleeds us with taxes, pits group against group in battles over quotas and privileges, and has decimated our neighborhoods with a futile and devastating War on Drugs. If the federal politicians impose such alien values on us, how can we expect them to do good things for foreigners?

If I am elected, I will bring home the troops from abroad. I will disentangle America from foreign alliances. I will cut the military budget by 2/3, returning $200 billion a year to American taxpayers. I pledge to protect Americans from having to send their children to fight and die in far away places for vague "national interests," determined by career politicians sitting safely in Washington D.C. I will bring an end to offensive military excursions abroad.

In 1983, Ronald Reagan made the most sensible military suggestion of the past 50 years -- that America should have protection against a missile attack. Unfortunately, he assigned the job to the Department of Defense, and now -- 15 years later -- we are no closer to being protected than we were then. If elected I would post a reward -- say, $50 billion -- collectable by the first company that can demonstrate a working, functioning, missile defense. Not a prototype. Not a plan. The actual working system. If such a reward were offered, we probably would have a missile defense within five years.

A working missile defense, coupled with a policy of peaceful non-intervention abroad, and a greatly streamlined, much smaller standing military force would greatly enhance America's defense. And in the end, the military's primary objective is just that: To defend against the prospect that America's youth are sent abroad to die.