Hang on, where is my money going?
You will hear often in our political discourse that we are merely wasting treasure funding a proxy war in a faraway land. You may even wonder if all this support is worth it. I can assure you it is.
American military support has long been an integral aspect of our foreign aid. We do this to test weapons, enforce international law and deter enemies. All three of these are critical to our national defense and economic security.
As many of you know, America is at peace, but that cannot last forever. America and her interests will one day come into conflict with an existential enemy, and when that time comes, we want to be 100 percent sure that our weapons work. Fortunately, we don’t get many opportunities to test our weapons in battlefield scenarios, but unfortunately, our friends occasionally do. When this happens, America gets to both support our friends and send valuable technical data back to our armed forces, so they are ready for our next war. We cannot be at a disadvantage because we were not willing to share our weapons, but our enemies were.
Often when we think of national security, we think of invaders in the homeland, but this is short-sighted. Our modern world, which has brought so many people out of absolute poverty, is built on a system of international rules. These rules protect American trade throughout the world. If we let dictators flout the international rules whenever they want, our modern world built on trade and comparative advantages will be lost. We will lose the technologies that run our cars, smartphones, and even missile defense systems. Let’s not forget that 90 percent of high-end semiconductors come from Taiwan. https://www.economist.com/special-report/2023/03/06/taiwans-dominance-of-the-chip-industry-makes-it-more-important
Finally, our enemies are watching. They are watching to see if we protect our democratic interests, they are watching to see if we protect our economic interests and they are watching to see if we allow disunity in our foreign policy to take hold. Our enemies are looking for any opportunity to take advantage of American weakness.
We cannot let our enemies take advantage of us. We must be ready to step up and protect our interests around the globe. The modern world that lifts up all of us is relying on strong American leadership.
