Why Trump Likes the Military by Paul R. Pillar

http://lobelog.com/why-trump-likes-the-military/#more-38283

Why Trump Likes the Military

by Paul R. Pillar
Consider this major disconnect.  On one hand, President Trump presents a proposed budget that calls for a major increase in spending on the military, even while drastically slashing funding for huge parts of much else that the federal government does.  On the other hand, his first address to Congress says almost nothing about foreign policy and provides almost no explanation of what supposedly requires that expansion in the military and how it is to be used.  Conspicuous by its absence is a strategic rationale from this administration that lays out how an expanded U.S. military would be part of a larger, well-thought-out foreign and security policy.
There is not, in fact, a sound rationale for such an increase in the U.S. military budget, which already is larger than the budgets of the next seven biggest military spenders combined, including potential adversaries China and Russia.  As veteran defense budget expert Gordon Adams observes, the U.S. military is not unready and not “hollow,” and threat is not driving the proposed budget increase.  Adams writes, “If readiness is defined as forces ready to do battle in central Europe, which it still largely is, then we don’t have that and, arguably, don’t need it, either. But if readiness is defined as forces that can be used where they are being used—in regional theaters, in small numbers, as part of counter-terror/counter-Islamic State operations—then we have the most ready force we’ve ever seen.”http://lobelog.com/why-trump-likes-the-military/#more-38283