The Defense Department Gets It

by Stuart Shapiro

When it comes to progressive thinking, the Pentagon is not the first place people think of (although at times in our history, as with integration, they have been ahead of society at large).  A recent report, penned by two senior members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and clearly supported by the top brass, argued that from a strategic perspective we were over-investing in defense and under-investing elsewhere (h/t Foreign Policy).

By investing energy, talent, and dollars now in the education and training of young Americans — the scientists, statesmen, industrialists, farmers, inventors, educators, clergy, artists, service members, and parents, of tomorrow — we are truly investing in our ability to successfully compete in, and influence, the strategic environment of the future. Our first investment priority, then, is intellectual capital and a sustainable infrastructure of education, health and social services to provide for the continuing development and growth of America’s youth.

The report also decries our response to terrorism and the demonization of Islam as shortsighted and as creating more vulnerabilities than it is preventing.  As the folks at Foreign Policy note, the report should be required reading for members of Congress and the American public.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.