The United States cannot afford strategically, economically, or politically to stay on the offensive forever in an ill-defined and open-ended conflict in Iraq. At the current “burn rate” of more than $15 billion per month, funding to stay on the “offensive” has severe opportunity costs, siphoning away finite resources from dimensions of national security, including defense and deterrence.
In 2008, 20 percent of the $740 billion “national security budget” will be spent on Iraq, twice what the federal government spends defending the homeland. We suffer from a strategic disconnect—the strategy we have places too much emphasis on military intervention and not enough on the other elements of national power that are more likely to reduce the threat of terrorism to the United States. We also suffer from a budget disconnect—our existing national security budget funds the strategy we have, not the one we need.
