Pentagon funding linked to Trump stance on Russia amid sanctions waiver

The takes

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  Adam Smith

  1723–1790, Scotland (the Scottish Enlightenment: Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, Edinburgh)

  A Trillion and a Half in Other People’s Money

  When defence becomes a “one-time generational investment,” the impartial spectator’s first question is not how loud the drums sound, but who, silently, is sending the coins.

  A defence minister now presses legislators to grant a record defence budget of $1.5 trillion, presented as a “one-time generational investment” necessary for national security. At the same moment, the chief magistrate temporarily relaxes sanctions upon Russia, also in the name of national security; some legislators threaten to make future defence funds depend upon a more severe posture toward that power. The scene is familiar: a great sum of other people’s money, a high-sounding appeal to safety, and a quarrel not over whether the money shall be spent, but over the exact music to which it shall be marched out the door. It is a costly opera, and the audience is compelled to buy tickets.

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  John Locke

  1632–1704, England (writing amid the Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution)

  A $1.5 Trillion Test of Whether Power Still Answers to the People

  When a president waives sanctions and demands a “one-time generational” arms fortune on his own security judgment, the question is not strategy but trust: does this still look like government by consent, or has prerogative slipped into usurpation?

  The report is stark enough: the president of the United States has temporarily ended many restrictions on Moscow that Congress only lately imposed, pleading “national security” as his reason. At the same time, his Pentagon chief presses the legislature to grant a record $1.5 trillion defense budget, styled a “one-time generational investment” to fulfil presidential security priorities, and speaks of pushing this through “regardless” of the election’s result, relying on members who will feel “unshackled from their responsibility to be in lock step with the president.” In so few lines we have the whole modern drama: sanctions undone by executive hand, treasure demanded in extraordinary sums, and a political class urged to spend as if freed from answer to their constituents.

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  Niccolò Machiavelli

  1469–1527, Florence (republican secretary and diplomat, then exile, amid the Italian Wars)

  Sanctions for Show, Trillions for Steel: Trump’s Dangerous Middle Course on Russia

  When a ruler waives penalties with one hand while demanding $1.5 trillion in arms with the other, he wagers the republic on his skill at playing both fox and lion at once.

  A president who asks for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget while temporarily ending new restrictions on Moscow tells you plainly what game he thinks he is playing. He believes guns speak louder than lawyers. The Pentagon chief calls this spending a “one-time generational investment,” essential to the president’s national security priorities. At the same time, Congress has only just passed sanctions on Russia, and the president waives many of them on grounds of “national security.” This is not a pious homily about peace. It is a maneuver. He is trading the visible cudgel of law for the more silent threat of steel.

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