Earlier this week, I attended a talk on geopolitics by Noah Rothman, organized by the Blue Ridge Center. Noah's main argument can be summarized thusly: tensions are rising all over the world and most foreign powers, at least those that are not allied to the U.S., share a common goal: ridding the world of U.S. hegemony. He proposes that we cannot simply expect to have peace without a cost, and we need to drastically increase our military spending and foreign aid (to countries such as Ukraine, Israel, Philippines etc.), otherwise, Russia, China, Iran, and other long term U.S. adversaries, will work in unison to dethrone the United States as the world's leading superpower.
He addressed this briefly in his speech, but I think there is a very pressing issue in our political system that will prevent this from happening. The reality is, our representatives are vote maximizers and the vast majority of politicians' constituents would certainly not support a further increase in the United States' foreign war efforts. Having said this, we have analyzed that politicians also act out of their own ideological beliefs, not just the preferences of their constituents. So, it certainly is possible that if a representative had such a strong conviction to propose an increase in military spending, it could outweigh their desire to appeal to their constituents. Nevertheless, it is my belief that this is unlikely to happen and even if politicians agreed with Noah's viewpoint, their desire to retain power would surely trump their willingness to forgo their political career for the sake of such a policy.
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