The author of the thesis is a concerned writer who wonders why the United States government continues to spend money on war carriages that they do not need. His thesis is an elaborate attempt to get the government to revise its military budget allocations. The thesis is about cost cutting measures for the military spending by the US Pentagon’s budget.
The author argues overwhelmingly that the current challenge of the US government is its growing debt levels. He does not think that a continued investment and spending on the defense budget will do the country any good.
The writer proposes several cost cutting measures that could guarantee a restoration to the US dignity by reducing its debt levels. He suggests that the government should use the following measures. First, it would be better to reduce spending on acquisitions and purchases of new weapons, submarines, and aircraft carriers. Second, authorities should cut down on the staff payroll and procurement including reduction in personnel bonuses and other staff benefits.
Other measures outlined by the author include closure of irrelevant military outreach programs which downsize the aircraft fuel bills and normal communication expenditures. A cut in the number of aircraft carriers from 11 to 8, closure of some of the US specialized military agencies and reduction in the military intelligence budget are also necessary.
The author also asserts that the US government needs to make the hard choice of withdrawing their troops from war tone areas around the world – off shore balancing. Once executed, massive spending on the US troops abroad will be much reduced and the debt ratio trimmed.
The most important factor in all these is the political goodwill. The author notes that the success of this process calls for tough choices by the political class of the day. The writer suggests that the politicians must have the courage to make decisions that would reverse spending on unaffordable and, perhaps, irrelevant military missions.
The author’s point of view is logical and relevant. The US government spends more than it should in homeland security as well as international interventions on security issues. The government hopes that it can win the war on terrorism, piracy and regional insecurity insurgencies by pouring more and more funding into the defense department.
This is not the best way to gain peace. Peace is simply not possible as a result of massive defense spending. It will be rather calculated peace strategies with much less spending than the government exercises.
There are two important points from the essay which make much sense in this discussion: there are dozens of studies that prove the need to reduce defense spending, and there is an emerging consensus on what to cut on to do this. The next reason is that while a lot of funding get invested on defense, little attention goes to the health care, infrastructure and education. These are equally important to the American people and needs sorting (Furlong 26).
Cost cut in the defense budget should have happened quite long ago. The government should not fail to rank measures that enhance financial stability of the United States.
Works Cited
Furlong, Christopher, Cheung, Lance and Yeon. Je Jung. “National Defense Spending.” The Times 25 Apr. 2011. Print.