John Horgan: Why the U.S. Military Needs to Shrink

The United States is an extremely militaristic culture right now, and we are armed to the teeth. We are very aggressive in pursuing our interests violently around the world. Until recently, we were in two major armed conflicts. We just withdrew our troops from Iraq. That's a very good thing. I hope we don't go back in, and we still have troops in Afghanistan.

Barack Obama has pledged to bring those troops home. Our military is also gigantic. It more than doubled since 9/11, and there are no signs that it's going to be reduced appreciably any time in the future. Barack Obama has talked about maybe a 10% reduction over the next 8 or 10 years, which is trivial compared to how big our budget really is.

The United States military budget is roughly the size of all other nations' military budgets combined. If we cut our military in half, just in terms of the annual defense budget, it would still be much bigger than China's and Russia's combined. I'd like to also see us take the lead in getting rid of our nuclear arsenal. There is absolutely no use for nuclear weapons anymore, and it's very difficult for us to make the case to a country like Iran, "No, you're not allowed to have nuclear weapons," when we still have about 8,000 nuclear warheads in our own arsenal.

I think it's hard for us to tell other people that they should respect the rule of law when we are carrying out these illegal assassinations in other places and are answerable only to ourselves. I think that our militarism helps to perpetuate the kind of fear and insecurity around the world that, unfortunately, will make armed conflict more likely. I think our hope, of course, is that other people are too scared ever to engage in any sort of violence, or we will retaliate.

I don't think it's going to work that way. So I see this period as an enormous opportunity for our country, for the United States to show some real leadership because we are so powerful. We, of course, like to think of ourselves as a peaceful, just, very moral people, and I think we have a right to feel that about ourselves.

So I'm hoping that we have the kind of leadership someday, maybe even Barack Obama in his second term, that will seize this opportunity and help convince Americans and the rest of the world that now is the time when we can really move past this period of militarism and war and take those resources and use them to solve some of the other problems that often lead to conflict.