What Obama's Foreign and National Security Policies Really Mean

You simply cannot detach foreign policy and national security from economic policy. Sen. Obama's national security policy is driven by the absolute need to cut defense spending and get out of Iraq as quickly as possible, regardless of the consequences overseas. It also means that there are dire consequences at home.

The defense budget has a real effect on the homefront. It's called jobs all over the country who rely on defense contractors getting jobs to build and rebuild tanks and Humvees. It's jobs at contractors who develop and manufacture up-armor kits for those vehicles. It's jobs at the contractors who manufacture the UAVs that give the US unparalleled ability to scan the countryside for terrorists and insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan, and to even strike at the terrorists operating from inside Pakistan.

It's jobs in those battleground states of Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. You don't think that those states' residents don't know what would happen if an Obama Administration starts cutting defense spending. It's their jobs that the Democrats are talking about. Even if Rep. Barney Frank's 25% cut proposals don't get passed, the Democrats are still talking about significant cuts - 10-15%, which means real jobs will be lost in these states.

Obama would like to get people thinking that defense spending is a bad thing and that we need to spend more on domestic programs; even though those very problems have been a failure for decades. Expanding government spending on these areas at the expense of national security is foolhardy in the best of times, and we're still fighting a war overseas that requires the expenditure of considerable amounts to maintain a highly motivated and extremely sophisticated military force with unparalleled striking capabilities.

Does that sound like a good idea? It never did to me.