Vivek Ramaswamy: evaluation

Transcript context

…So, I think the nanny state, I’m against it overall, I’m against the foreign policy nanny state as well. Let me just start from that as the starting-off point, and then I’ll tell you about my views on the DOD and our Defense. First of all, think that… And I think that it was easy for many people from the neocon school of thought to caricature my views with the media at their side, but actually, my own view is, if it’s in the interest of the United States of America to provide certain levels of protection to US allies, we can do that as long as those allies actually pay for it. And I think it’s important for two reasons. The less important reason, it’s still an important reason, the less important reason is, it’s still money for us. It’s not like we’re swimming in a cash surplus right now. We’ve got a $34 trillion national debt, and growing, and I think pretty soon the interest payments are going to be the largest line item in our own federal budget. So, it’s not like we have money willy-nilly to just hand over for free. That’s the less important reason, though. The more important reason is that it makes sure that our allies have actual skin in the game to not have skewed incentives to actually enter conflicts where they’re not actually bearing the full cost of those conflicts. So, take NATO for example, most NATO countries, literally a majority of NATO countries today do not pay or contribute 2% of their GDP to their own National Defense, which is supposedly a requirement to be in NATO. So the majority of NATO countries are failing to meet their basic commitment to be in NATO in the first place. Germany particularly is, I think, arbitraging the hell out of the United States of America. And I don’t think that… I’m not going to be some shrill voice here saying, “So therefore, we should not be supporting any allies or providing security blankets.” No, I’m not going in that direction. What I would say is, you’ve got to pay for it. Pay for your fair share, A, because we’re not swimming in excess money ourselves, but B, is, it tells us that you actually have skin in the game for your own Defense, which actually then makes nations far more prudent in the risks that they take, whether or not they’re in a war, versus if somebody else is paying for it and somebody else is providing our security guarantee, yeah, I might as well take the gamble and see where I end up at the end of a war, versus the restraint that that imposes on the decision-making of those allies. So, now, let’s bring this home to the Department of Defense. I think the top goal of the US Defense Policy establishment should be to provide for the national defense of the United States of America. And the irony is, that’s what we’re actually doing most poorly. think the top goal of the US Defense Policy establishment should be to provide for the national defense of the United States of America. And the irony is, that’s what we’re actually doing most poorly. Other than the Coast Guard, we’re not really using the US Military to prevent crossings at our own southern border and crossings at our other borders. In fact, the United States of America, our homeland, I believe is less secure today than it has been in a very long time. Vulnerable to threats from hypersonic missiles where China and Russia… Russia certainly has capabilities in excess of that of the United States, missiles. Hypersonic means faster than the speed of sound that could hit the United States, including those carrying nuclear warheads. We are more vulnerable to super EMP attacks, Electromagnetic Pulse attacks, that could, without exaggeration, some of this could be from other nations, some of this could even be from solar flares, cause significant mass casualty in the United States of America. If the electric grid’s gone, it’s not exaggeration to say, if that happened, planes would be falling out of the sky because our chips really depend on those, well, will be affected by those electromagnetic pulses. More vulnerable to cyber attacks. I know people, okay, start yawning and say, “Okay, boring stuff, super EMP, cyber,” or whatever. No. Actually, it is pretty relevant to whether or not you actually are facing the risk of not getting your insulin because your refrigerator doesn’t work anymore or your food can’t be stored or your car or your ability to fly on an airplane is impaired. So, I think that these are risks where our own National Defense spending has been wholly inadequate. So, I’m not one of these people that says decrease versus increase National Defense spending. We’re not spending it in the right places. The number one place we need to be spending it is actually protecting our National Defense, protecting our own physical homeland. And I think we actually need an increase in spending on protecting our own homeland. But that is different from the agenda of foreign interventionism and foreign nanny state-ism for its own sake, where we should expect more and demand more of our allies to provide for their own national defense and then provide the relevant security guarantees to allies where that actually advances the interest of the United States of America. So, that’s what I believe. And I think this process has been corrupted by what Dwight Eisenhower famously in his farewell address called the Military Industrial Complex in the United States. But I think it’s bigger than just the… I think it’s easy to tell the tales of the financial corruption. It’s kind of cultural corruption and conceit that just because certain number of people in that expert class have a belief, that their belief happens to be the right one because they can scare you with what the consequence would be if you don’t follow their advice. rtain number of people in that expert class have a belief, that their belief happens to be the right one because they can scare you with what the consequence would be if you don’t follow their advice. And one of the beauties of the United States is, at least in principle, we have civilian control of the military. The person who we elect to be the US President is the one that actually is the true Commander in Chief. I have my doubts of whether it operates that way. I think it’s quite obvious that Joe Biden is not a functioning Commander in Chief of the United States of America, yet, on paper, supposedly we’re still are supposed to call him that. But at least in theory, we’re supposed to have civilian control of the US Military. And I think that one of the things that that leader needs to do is to ask the question of, again, the mission. What’s the purpose of this US Military in the first place? At the top of the list should be to protect the homeland and the people who actually live here, which we’re failing to do. So, that’s where I land on that question.…

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