National security

Paul Ryan's National-Security Plan Won't Work

At an event with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on Thursday, the Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan introduced a new Republican proposal to strengthen U.S. national security. In his opening remarks, he said his plan would “keep Americans safe at home, defeat the terrorists, advance America’s interests abroad, and renew our national security tools.” If this plan is adopted, however, it is likely none of those hopes will be realized.

The paper is full of tough-sounding rhetoric about how the Republican plan will keep America safe, and makes a number of assertions without bothering to provide any evidence that the prescriptions can actually accomplish their intended goals—or considering likely second- and third-order effects. There are a number of problems with the sixty-seven policy points in the plan outlined by Ryan and other members of the House National Security Task Force. Here I’ll address three of the more problematic.