America's "defense" budget is really more than $1.2 trillion, more than double the Pentagon's official "base budget," once we include all the other related spending like that on "homeland security" and veterans affairs.
How ironic that Pompeo and the rest of the neocons in the Trump administration are ready to violate the US Constitution in order to attack Venezuela to “restore their constitution.”
Disagreements between libertarians and realists are a problem. But in the current interventionist-dominated environment, the disagreements don't strike me as an especially big problem — at least for now.
Those who are advocating for new interventions in Syria and Venezuela show little interest in confronting the real costs of intervention. They just want to say they "did something" even if those things will turn out to be disastrous.
The growing acceptance of "humanitarian" interventions works to remove national sovereignty as a bulwark against expansionist large states in the international order.
One of the world's most militaristic Islamic dictatorships — Saudi Arabia — lobbies heavily in Washington to increase US military spending — and the Saudis are rewarded handsomely for their efforts.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, chief among the naysayers, said, “I was against (use of the atomic bomb) on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
