Shortfalls Of Critical Thinking Analysis

Hartung, W. D. (2003, February 14). War without end? The costs of the new military buildup. United States. Retrieved July 15, 2005, from http://www.iansa.org/iraq

“President Obama has, conveniently, rewritten the standard of military strategy to conform to his defense-budget-cutting desires”(Bucci, 1). This quote shows how someone can manipulate the budget to make people think it is going to be for the better, but there are always two sides to a story. The defense budget cuts are causing the military a plethora of stresses because it’s taking away some training programs, benefits from soldiers, and even making America look tenuous.

Renowned historian and classicist scholar Victor Davis Hanson’s January 11, 2012 commentary entitled “Heavy Price of Defense Spending Cuts: Nations That Choose Butter over Guns Atrophy and Die” warrants a thoughtful analysis of its merits and shortcomings by U.S. military officers entrusted with leading this nation’s youth while implementing our national strategy.

In the past America has been a dominant superpower in the field of military strength, but for the last few decades, our military has encountered abounding liquidations and sequestrations, which lead to huge budget cuts. Nevertheless, America has faced many politicians planning to cut down on our military by virtue of it is simply cost effective. The Clinton Foundation has been cutting our military for countless years. Also, under the Obama Administration has been enacting laws comparable to the Budget Control Act or (BCA) which has been siphoning our military for the past 8 years. For countless years, defense officials remain silent due to the Obama Administration, vaguely America could keep its budget under control. Consequently, all four

The United States is a militaristic country because of the military budget, the military’s expansion into civilian areas, and military culture. The large and increasing budget of the military is an example of U.S. militarism. According to National Priorities

In a 2015 article, “Is U.S. military becoming outdated?” written by Stuart Bradin, Keenan Yoho, and Meaghan Keeler-Pettigrew, the authors argued that despite the U.S. military maintaining a position of global dominance “without peer” during conventional operations, it is not the ideal force against current and future threats. The authors claim that there are several negative factors arising due to the past sixteen years of war against several state and non-state elements, inferior cultural differences of government bureaucracy compared to commercial firms, and a misallocation of defense spending that leaves the US military waging war inefficiently while simultaneously losing technological dominance against current and future threats.

In “Questing for Monsters to Destroy,” John Mueller, an American political scientist, says American policymakers put, “a truly massive emphasis on exquisite theorizing and on defense expenditures,” because these policymakers, “became mesmerized by perceived threats that scarcely warranted the preoccupation and effort,” of actual military action (p 117). Continuing, he argues that American decision makers constantly saw Russia’s actions as bigger threats than they really were and acted accordingly, which resulted in the U.S. spending money and troops to fight wars they should have never been involved in.

The United States spends far more than any other country on defense and security with no end in sight to their expenditures. The total military spending by the United States is nearly equal to the combined military spending of every other nation combined. This unreasonable amount of spending hinders the capacity to provide basic needs, as well as eliminating money that can be used to resolve other domestic issues, while at the same time allowing for short-term economic prosperity and increasing our national defense capacity.

Military Budget is ‘Foolish and Sustainable’”, Benjamin Friedman and Justin Logan, a researcher and a director, respectively at Cato Institute, discuss ways in which a minimization in military spending can have positive outcomes for both the U.S. and other countries. To summarize the essay, they state that the best approach is if for the U.S. to reduces its military presence in other countries. Effectively, this would prevent countries from relying on U.S. intervention and allow more countries to be dependent on themselves; additionally, it will also prevent “weaker” allied nations from gaining a false sense of emboldenment to take risks they otherwise would not against neighboring countries, which would inevitably force the U.S. to intervene. Friedman and Logan estimated that a disinclination to impose rule over these “weaker” nations will not only increase content among both nations, but it will save over $250 billion over a span of a decade and thousands of lives, and still leave a force capable of winning any ground war if needed (Friedman, B., et al., 2012, 177-191). Friedman and Logan have valid claims that agree with and support my position as to both how, and why, there should be cuts in military

In “Questing for Monsters to Destroy,” John Mueller, an American political scientist, says American policymakers put “a truly massive emphasis on exquisite theorizing and on defense expenditures,” because these policymakers, “became mesmerized by perceived threats that scarcely warranted the preoccupation and effort,” of actual military action (p 117). He argues that American decision makers constantly saw Russia’s actions as bigger threats than they really were and acted accordingly, which resulted in the U.S. spending money and troops to fight wars they should have never been involved in.

Observers do not need to look far for the signs of a military-industrial complex that has become too powerful and involved in politics. The Army has repeatedly attempted to halt the production and spending on new tanks. The Air Force has spent almost $400 billion on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, nearly double the initial estimate. If the relationship between civilian and military leaders is to be mended, leadership decisions must not be influenced by the military-industrial

Army General Tommy Franks, U.S. Navy Admiral Timothy Keating, U.S. Army General Hugh Shelton and U.S. Marine Corp General James Conway. 2 of these officers, who are Generals Frank and Conway, are quoted either visually or audibly arguing that Obama’s defense cuts are bad policy that threatens America’s security. First, without some qualification, the ad’s statement that “America’s military leaders agree” is likely to wrongly cause its audience’s hasty generalization that all military leaders agree with its statement in argument here. Moreover, this argumentative conclusion does not even follow from the support of the just 4 cited officers or is, in other words, non sequitur. The political advertisement here argues that the defense cuts will be devastating to the financial security and welfare of American military personnel and their dependents. The officers state, instead, that the cuts are devastating to the nation’s defense preparedness. Overall, one observes here a scare tactic intended to cause the segment of the ad’s audience, which consists of active duty military and their families, into voting against Obama without any substantiation of its exaggerated claims of potential harm to them from his policies. The sad thing is that this November 6th election eve scare tactic, discrediting of the Mitt Romney campaign’s intellectual integrity, is likely largely wasted anyway. Most military personnel have already voted much earlier by absentee ballot.

In conclusion, most of Aspin?s assumptions in ?The Bottom-up Review? were boundless and unfounded. In a perfect world, a defense strategist would have an endless budget and reach for all of the advancements he wants in his military. However, a more reasonable plan would have reflected the prudence of the President?s newly executed defense

Fallows describes the impact of the military-industrial complex has to be detrimental in its economic and political influence just as Eisenhower warned in his speech.” The economic problem is that the federal government no longer has enough money to throw around without a plan. The political problem is the distortion of the process of public choice.” (Fallows, 2009, para 8). The military industrial complex encourages the option of war.

The United States incurred many costs during the Iraq War and sacrificed the production of other goods for an increase in the defense budget; this trade off has affected our ability to rebuild our economy after the war. The Iraq War cost about 1.7 trillion dollars from 2001 until now, this number does not include interest or the money needed to support war veterans. (Brown University) In order for a country to be involved in a war, they must sacrifice some goods and services so that the military can be stronger. In an article written about President Eisenhower the author gives some insight into this struggle, saying “Eisenhower understood every dollar spent on military forced trade-offs with domestic programs such as infrastructure, health