April 13, 2017
Military keeps American people and business safe
It appears that President Trump's proposed budget will not survive first contact on the Hill. The large cuts to some agencies, such as the State Department, and cultural investment, such as the National Endowment for the Arts, have been decried by Republicans and Democrats alike. The conversation has, however, spurred a discussion about what the defense budget should be and do.
It's easy to focus on what the U.S. military does overseas, not to mention how expensive it appears to be. Yet we need to remember that defense spending enables the benefits of peace at home. U.S. Air Force and Navy assets defend the satellites and undersea cables that facilitate today's advanced telecommunications — enabling everything from GPS to the financial transactions that underpin modern commerce. Everyday Americans feel these benefits when they order a Lyft on their mobile phone, pull up a list of florists near their office from their desktop, or file their taxes from the comfort of their home computer. As Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet (Google's parent company), reminded a defense audience last week, defense spending built the internet — and spawned an entire industry.
Read the full article at the Times-Call.
More from CNAS
-
National Security Human Capital Program
A Workforce Strategy for America’s Shipbuilding FutureThe future of American maritime dominance will not be determined solely by the number of ships launched or contracts signed, but rather by the strength and sustainability of t...
By Katherine L. Kuzminski
-
Defense & Aerospace Air Power Podcast [Jun 26, 25] Season 3 E25: Focus Forward
Just when people were saying the future of air power was small, distributed systems like UAVs, the US struck Iran’s nuclear program infrastructure with an old-fashioned manned...
By Stacie Pettyjohn
-
National Security Human Capital Program
Could the U.S. Bring Back the Draft?In this episode of At the Boundary, GNSI’s Dr. Guido Rossi sits down with Katherine Kuzminski, Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), to explore...
By Katherine L. Kuzminski
-
Defense / Energy, Economics & Security
Tariffs & and the Defense Industrial Base with Becca Wasser, plus what’s new in the U.S.-China trade warGeoff and Emily debrief on the latest news in the U.S.-China trade talks. Becca Wasser, senior fellow and deputy director of the CNAS defense program, joins to talk about what...
By Emily Kilcrease, Geoffrey Gertz & Becca Wasser