John Block Reports from Washington

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the Renewable Fuels Association, Monsanto, and John Deere. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of a healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary—

In the past week, we celebrated Veterans Day, saluting our veterans for their courage, dedication, and sacrifice. The Republican Presidential contenders squared off to debate U.S. foreign policy. And the military “hawks” are alarmed that should the Super Committee fail to reach a compromise, huge cuts for the military are mandated. All of this attention to military and foreign policy has come into focus. Here is what I think.

We need a serious national debate on where we go from here. I know that jobs, the economy, and debt are dominating the national debate. However, since military spending and foreign policy cost so much money and energy, they cannot be ignored.

Let’s put this in perspective. Our military expenditures are more than 620 billion dollars per year. We spend more money on our military than all the rest of the countries in the world. China is our closest competitor at $100 billion.

We have assumed the role of “Policeman to the World.” Every time there is a problem in a country, we seem to think that we must move in with our military might, fix it, and then rebuild the country. I don’t think President Bush should have invaded Iraq, but he is not the one that authorized a surge of troops in Afghanistan and escalated that war. President Obama called it “a war of necessity.”

I never agreed with that. We have spent billions and billions of dollars and lost thousands of lives. What does Afghanistan have? No oil – just camels and poppy fields. I give credit to the President for getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but his schedule hasn’t been any faster than the one proposed by President Bush.

Has our military action, nation building, and military dominance around the world saved us from another terrorist attack on our soil? I don’t know, but I do know that we can’t afford to continue our policy of managing the world. We have more than a million troops in uniform all over the world.

The Cold War ended in 1989, but we still have 80 thousand troops in Europe. Bring them home.

Russia is not going to attack Europe. Maybe Europe should provide its own defense.

Do you know how much Russia spends on its military? A paltry 8% of what we spend.

The threats in the world are different than they were during the Cold War. There is a new world order. We can’t afford to manage and pay to solve everybody else’s problems.

You might wonder – what does all this have to do with agriculture and rural America? A lot! We need to be safe and have a sound economy. That’s not going to happen unless we take care of business here at home first.

In closing, I would encourage you to access my website which archives my radio commentaries dating back 10 years and will go back 20 years when complete. Check on what I said back then. Go to www.johnblockreports.com.

Until next week, I am John Block in Washington.