The National Interest: Christopher A. Preble: Expecting More From Our Allies

The National Interest: Opinion: Christopher A. Preble: Expecting More from Our Allies: Why U.S. Foreign Policy Needs a Reboot

You can't be both a Neoconservative who wants America to police the world mostly if not completely by ourselves and be a fiscal Conservative who puts real limits on what government can do. Who doesn't want to consistently be borrowing money, running up deficits and expects government to pay for most if not all of its government operations as least when times are good. Speaking as a non-fiscal conservative, but fiscal Conservatives prioritize government spending. They lay out what is the money coming in and figure out exactly what government needs to do and then they pay for it.

A Progressive, is different and would try to figure out exactly what government should do without putting many if any limits on it and try to figure out how to pay for it. Even if that requires borrowing the money. Same thing with Neoconservatives who actually tend to be somewhat progressive when it comes to economic policy. George W. Bush in the 2000s, is an example of that. Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, who wanted to use government to move people out of poverty through work and job training. And encourage business's to hire people on Welfare. Speaker Paul Ryan, very similar today.

So if you just look at foreign policy and national security from a fiscal conservative point of view and not from a liberal internationalist or smart power point of view, or even a dovish perspective, having American taxpayers pay for the national security of other developed countries who can economically afford and have the population to defend themselves, doesn't make good fiscal sense, or even national security sense. Also it is not just American taxpayers who pay for other developed countries national defense in taxes. They also pay for it in higher interest rates because of the national debt and that we borrow from countries like Saudi Arabia and Japan, to defend them.

Out of all the Republican presidential candidates, maybe three of them are actually fiscal Conservatives. In party that is supposed to be a conservative party. And I'm thinking Senator Rand Paul, Governor John Kasich and perhaps Senator Ted Cruz. Senator Marco Rubio, wants to spend another trillion-dollars on national defense and invest even more money in having America try to defend Europe for Europe and Arabia for Arabia, Japan for Japan and South Korea for South Korea. All of the countries are developed countries that can afford to defend themselves. Saudi Arabia and South Korea, already have two of the largest militaries and defense budgets in the world. The European Union if they were a country, their economy would be roughly the size of the United States. How come they can't pay for their own national defense? They can, but have chosen not to. Why pay for your own defense, when someone else does that for you. The mind of a Socialist I guess.

America, can't afford to have a small military and defense budget, but we sure as hell can't afford to police the world ourselves. Especially when we're stuck with a twenty-trillion-dollar national debt and we're borrowing money from countries in order to defend the countries that we're borrowing money from. For America to be as secure as possible, financially, economically and security, other countries especially Europe, has to at least play their own part when it comes to their own national defense, as well as dealing with international challenges when they come as well like Syria and Iraq. Socialism, is cheap when you don't have to pay for your own security. Europe, would be a lot less socialist if they had to pay for their own defense and not expect America to do that for them.