Alvin S. Felzenberg and Alexander B. Gray:
[Alvin S. Felzenberg, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and at Yale University, is the author of The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn’t): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game. Alexander B. Gray studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and the war-studies department of King’s College, London.]
...As the deteriorating situation on the Korean peninsula reminds us, the security concerns of the United States do not disappear in times of economic distress. America’s interests, whether economic, strategic, diplomatic, or moral, cannot be set aside when Congress tires of them. The United States and the world paid a severe price for the ostrich-like behavior too many democratic nations exhibited during the 1920s and 1930s. Reps. Paul and Frank appear determined to repeat this mistake.
The United States continues to face an array of global challenges that require a modern, technologically superior military. It is very much in the interests of the United States to uphold the territorial integrity and economic independence of much of Asia, maintain the security of critical waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz, and protect American trade from pirates and terrorists worldwide. Rather than regard the nation’s defenses as a ready source of money available for diversion to domestic concerns, Congress and the president should identify the challenges America faces and assure that its military is able to meet them....
China, while continuing to upgrade its naval capabilities, grows increasingly assertive. In pursuit of its own Monroe Doctrine for East Asia, Beijing has proclaimed its sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, menaced neighbors from India to Vietnam, used its economic muscle to intimidate Japan, and increased its threats against Taiwan. China’s leaders have been studying the writings of the 19th-century American naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who demonstrated the connection between sea power and economic strength. At the turn of the last century, Theodore Roosevelt found in Mahan the blueprint for achieving unprecedented American influence in world affairs. His efforts to build both a strong navy and a sound economy ushered in the “American century,” the period in which the United States became a force for good throughout the world and a beacon of hope for those yearning to breathe free....
Read entire article at National Review
...As the deteriorating situation on the Korean peninsula reminds us, the security concerns of the United States do not disappear in times of economic distress. America’s interests, whether economic, strategic, diplomatic, or moral, cannot be set aside when Congress tires of them. The United States and the world paid a severe price for the ostrich-like behavior too many democratic nations exhibited during the 1920s and 1930s. Reps. Paul and Frank appear determined to repeat this mistake.
The United States continues to face an array of global challenges that require a modern, technologically superior military. It is very much in the interests of the United States to uphold the territorial integrity and economic independence of much of Asia, maintain the security of critical waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz, and protect American trade from pirates and terrorists worldwide. Rather than regard the nation’s defenses as a ready source of money available for diversion to domestic concerns, Congress and the president should identify the challenges America faces and assure that its military is able to meet them....
China, while continuing to upgrade its naval capabilities, grows increasingly assertive. In pursuit of its own Monroe Doctrine for East Asia, Beijing has proclaimed its sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, menaced neighbors from India to Vietnam, used its economic muscle to intimidate Japan, and increased its threats against Taiwan. China’s leaders have been studying the writings of the 19th-century American naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who demonstrated the connection between sea power and economic strength. At the turn of the last century, Theodore Roosevelt found in Mahan the blueprint for achieving unprecedented American influence in world affairs. His efforts to build both a strong navy and a sound economy ushered in the “American century,” the period in which the United States became a force for good throughout the world and a beacon of hope for those yearning to breathe free....