Calpundit has a question for the “War on Terror” hawks:
My question is this: we have the biggest military establishment on the planet by far. We spend more on national defense than the rest of the planet combined. Our technology is almost infinitely advanced beyond anyone else and our lead is accelerating. If this isn’t enough to fight global terrorism, what is?
See, I simply don’t understand how conventional military force is supposed to win the war on terror. It’s great for invading countries, but even the most hawkish hawks can’t seriously suppose that we can increase the size of the Army enough to invade any more countries beyond Iraq, can they? Especially since they disdain the idea of cooperating with other countries.
But we still hear the usual arguments: we’re desperately short of aircraft carriers. We spend less than 4% of GDP on defense and could easily afford to spend more. We’re stretched thin in Iraq.
But in what way would another couple of carrier groups help the war on terrorism? Or a missile defense system that doesn’t work? These kinds of things can help with conventional military assaults, but that’s not primarily what we need to fight terrorism.