Why the U.S. Needs a Larger Military Budget

Hundreds of next-generation, highly precise, reliable and lethal ICBMs, a fleet of nearly 150 new stealth bombers able to strike anywhere on earth and a 500-ship, heavily armed Navy are but merely a few of the hopes espoused by those in favor of a larger defense budget and a corresponding continued push toward massive U.S. military modernization and technological superiority. How can the U.S. build all of these weapons, capable of destroying millions … to keep the peace. Can superior weapons ensure that they never have to be used? 

It may seem to be a bit of a contradiction in terms, to prepare for a mission for the specific purpose of not having to perform the mission … yet it is the fundamental paradox of strategic deterrence, and the reason why many advocate for a robust and superior U.S. nuclear arsenal, a large, high-tech and dominating fielded military force and a relentless drive toward new generations of innovations likely to help achieve and maintain military overmatch for decades into the future.

What is the basis for this thinking? The notion that overwhelmingly superior military force can, to a certain extent, contradict its own existence by favoring, ensuring, preserving or even creating … peace.

Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Hobbes called it the “state of nature,” a term referring to the natural disposition or sensibilities defining the essence of mankind, as being in a state of “perpetual motion and chaos.” While certainly not without a detectable measure of pessimism, Hobbes’ delineation of man’s fundamental condition as one characterized by a desire for self-preservation and a fear of a violent death contributed to the philosophical foundation upon which liberal democracy in America was built. The optimism therefore, to the extent to which can be argued, is not so much in Hobbes’ description of the fundamental self-interested nature of mankind, but rather the method through which man’s nature can be accommodated by or successfully integrated into a political society.

Famous for describing life as “nasty, brutish and short,” Hobbes introduces the intellectual framework through which man’s individual nature can be reconciled with the health of an entire society. Essentially, this takes place through the realization of consequences and the extent to which the structure of civil society can address and remove man’s fear of death, and instead help ensure preservation.

In his famous Leviathan, Hobbes envisions political society in terms of a Commonwealth, a structure resulting from an agreement into which man willingly enters to ensure his own preservation. Since a civil society can, through things like a police force or governing body, ensure the preservation of the individual by enforcing laws, man is willing to relinquish many of what Hobbes calls his natural “appetites and aversions” to behave accordingly in a society governed by laws and maintained by an authority such as a police force.

In essence, Hobbes argues that society and stability can be achieved and sustained by accommodating man’s fundamental desire for preservation, therefore offering an opportunity for the individual to choose to willingly enter the Commonwealth. Hobbes referred to this as a Covenant, or mutually binding agreement into which parties enter willingly. Thus the premise for “government with the consent of the governed” … sound familiar? As one of the contract theorists who inspired democracy in America, Hobbes maintained that man’s fundamental self-interest and fear of death could serve as a stabilizing force in society because rules, laws, societal structures and institutions are able to ensure man’s preservation.