As Americans evaluate the coming debate, they should ask two basic questions. Clearly, the existing military budget is as badly managed as ever. The Air Force is budgeting for training more pilots than it will actually be able to train. The Navy gets more money for shipyard labor than it will actually need.
Taxpayers deserve better management of existing resources before coughing up additional billions.
Obviously the world continues to be troubled and violent. Regional disputes and civil wars abound. The Soviet Union has dissolved, and Russia is struggling just to survive. Its disintegrating military, most recently humiliated by the ragged Chechen street fighters, poses no real threat, present or future, to the United States. It has only toy soldiers, formations of boys with no capacity.