Defense Budgeting for a Safer World

Overview

America is facing the most dangerous and complex geopolitical environment since World War II. Ensuring the adequacy and flexibility of our defense budget is essential to keeping our nation secure and the world safe for global democracy. Defense Budgeting for a Safer World brings together the ideas, perspectives, and solutions of America's most renowned experts on national security and the defense budget.

The volume originates from a conference held at the Hoover Institution in early 2023 and reflects the presentations, discussions, and debates among military and civilian leaders. Drawing on their remarkable experience leading the Pentagon, the services, Congress, and academe, these experts lay out the key priorities in reforming, realigning, and rightsizing the budget amid current challenges. Several topics converge: national security threats, strategy, technology and innovation, personnel, reform options, and the politics of the defense budget. This unique compilation covers each of the major areas of debate in forging and sustaining a defense budget capable of supporting the nation's security needs.

Reviews

"This collection is an important call to better marshal the national strength that sustains strategy. It is an urgent book by a distinguished group of nonpartisan contributors.”
—Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state and national security advisor

“A deep understanding and passion for the global economy, history, and armed forces are what we need to solve some of the most important security issues, and that is precisely what is offered in these pages.”
—US Representative Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), member of the House Armed Services Committee, Budget Committee, and Ways and Means Committee

“Modern warfare demands modern, agile defense budgeting. This collection brilliantly tackles the challenge, highlighting important reforms that would revitalize America’s defense industrial base, enhance lethality, and thereby strengthen deterrence.”
—US Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI), chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, IT, and Innovation and the Select Committee on US-China Strategic Competition, and member of the House Intelligence Committee

“This volume starkly hammers home the reality that failure to reform the defense budgeting process truly undermines our military capabilities and imperils the nation.”
—Robert M. Gates, former secretary of defense and director of central intelligence

“A tremendous source of invaluable insights, assessments, and policy proposals, and an extraordinary contribution to the most significant debates of the day.”
—General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former commander, US Central Command and NATO/US forces in Afghanistan, and director of the CIA

“These are dangerous times, with the nation’s values, interests, and security threatened around the globe and its economic well-being threatened by an unsustainable federal budget outlook. At the intersection lies the defense budget and America’s military.”
—Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director, Congressional Budget Office

“Superb synthesis of thought from today’s leading national security experts . . . [offering] keen insights and solutions to provide for the common defense in the twenty-first century.”
— General Joseph Dunford, US Marine Corps (Ret.), former chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and commandant, Marine Corps

“A clarion call to action for all members of Congress, our military leadership, defense industry leaders, and all Americans concerned about national security.”
—Admiral Jay L. Johnson, US Navy (Ret.), former chief of Naval Operations, former chairman and CEO of General Dynamics Corp.

“I fear that we are entering an era of enhanced military competition, in which national defense is going to absorb an increased share of American GDP. Whatever your perspective on foreign policy or military spending, you can learn from the important economic analysis in this volume, which can contribute to making wise choices.”
—Lawrence H. Summers, former secretary of the Treasury and director, National Economic Council

Author Biography

Michael J. Boskin is the Wohlford Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Tully M. Friedman Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

John N. Rader is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, chief operating officer at Affinity Partners Global LLC, and former senior policy advisor, National Security Council.

Kiran Sridhar is the head of strategic initiatives for Resilience and serves on the investment team of Shield Capital.