Relative peacetime and technology changes have made large numbers of troops unnecessaary. Therefore, I advocate streamlining the number of military personnel, and improving the quality, compensating the forces we do retain more adequately. A more efficient way of bolstering the internal defense of the United States is to use the tool the founders left for us. In addition to relying on State National Guards to supplement the U.S. Armed Forces, I advocate the development of state, local, and private unorganized militias as outlined in the United States Code, and advocate development of legislation to enable local militias to form without undue interference from police and federal authorities. If Americans truly want to help other countries, they can best do so not through failed foreign aid programs, but by improving the U.S. economy, so that U.S. businesses have funds to invest abroad, and pursuing free trade policies.
Foreign aid is structurally bad because it undermines the incentive to take responsibility.
The more aid a country receives, the less the government of that country has to answer to the people. But there is little evidence that any of these programs has significantly improved the lives of the people in countries receiving this aid. Instead, foreign aid has typically slowed economic development and created dependence. In fact, despite massive amounts of international aid, the average annual increase in per capita GNP has declined steadily in developing nations since the 1960s, with many of the Third World's heaviest aid recipients actually suffering negative economic growth. A recent study by Peter Boone of the London School of Economics and the Center for Economic Performance confirmed that U.S. economic aid does not promote economic development.