10 reasons to reform U.S. national security policy.

• Author: Sledge, Nathaniel H., Jr.

The United States is reeling from the credit and real estate bubbles, high annual deficits and the ballooning national debt crisis.

Questions about what government we should have, how much government we can afford and how we should pay for government have come to the fore. It is time to examine spending priorities and seriously question the status quo, which by the size of the debt alone, is shameful and unsustainable.

Among the tragic but liberating days in peoples' lives are when they realize that the gods they have been worshipping are false. Witness the aristocracy during the French Revolution, the citizens of the Axis powers as the Third Reich imploded, or Soviet apparatchiks as the communist ideal collapsed. Many investors experienced similar anxiety when the dotcom and credit bubbles burst, and the myth of ever-rising asset values was discredited.

Involuntary changes or crises can focus minds and call into question traditional practices and customs. But cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing that only the strongest and most adaptable people and institutions can overcome.

Our national security policymakers are now facing this test of reason and adaptability. The phrase "rude awakening" comes to mind. Will they retrench themselves in the past, or choose the path of liberation and leverage the current financial crises to implement national security more efficiently? Can they reform the military departments to address real threats? Can they be trusted to manage 20 percent of the federal budget? And finally, will they make the investments in cooperation, manpower, materiel and technology to position the United States to defend itself and its allies with flexibility and strength?

Perhaps the answer to these questions can be found by focusing on the drivers of defense policies, procedures, organizations and structures, and the motivations of the actors engaged in national security policy development and execution.

What follows are 10 reasons why the U.S. security enterprise must be reformed to bring foreign policy in line with national values, and to enable improved fiscal health at the federal level.

1) The Fiscal Environment

According to most credible estimates, during the next decade, the United States can expect paltry GDP growth rates that will average between 1 to 2 percent and below, mirroring the fate of Japan during the last 23 years. Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio is now about 240 percent, with no relief in sight. Economists estimate that at some point in the next 15 years, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social welfare will consume the entire U.S. federal budget, crowding out investments in defense, infrastructure, education and research and development.

The growth of non-discretionary budget items should be curtailed to make room for discretionary spending. Congress, however, is hamstrung by partisan politics and concerns about election outcomes. It has demonstrated that it cannot stem the escalation of entitlements and healthcare costs, sees debt and borrowing as an easy way out, and it is ready to throw defense and infrastructure under the bus.

The U.S. government may not have a choice in this matter. The Federal Reserve could soon run out of tools to safely keep interest rates down. The interest on the national debt will one day exceed the cost of every government program combined. This development will put unrelenting pressure on lawmakers to cut defense, infrastructure, science, research and education.

2) U.S. Foreign Policy

The nation's foreign policy is simultaneously admirable and abominable. It is admirable because it promotes the spread of liberal democratic values, secures the global commons and has deterred threats to the international economy. But with that comes overreach. The notion that only the United States can keep the world peaceful and operating on liberal democratic values is specious. This ambitious stance invites pushback because it sometimes fosters perceptions that U.S. foreign policy is arrogant, overbearing and occasionally brutish.

The reckless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that we are exceptional all right, but not always in redeeming and virtuous ways. They also call into question whether the United States can be trusted to be a rational global policeman, in particular when it has impulsive decision makers at the top who are isolated in groupthink bubbles and want to prove themselves using other people's money and the blood and sweat of their sons and daughters.

U.S. interests are often at odds with many regions of the world. Students of history will easily recognize that recent adventures in South and Southwest Asia are what come of unchallenged economic and military hegemony.

No single nation can command and control the world, at least not for long without consequences. Besides being arrogant and unfeasible, this policy perspective overshadows the contributions of willing allies, so they have little incentive to invest in their own defense...