By Daniel Wise

The United States relies too heavily on our military might in foreign policy. For more than a decade, our country has been waging active wars in the Middle East. This has left our military tired, with several thousand dead, and many more thousands wounded physically and mentally.

Over a decade ago, the United States entered into nation building thinking that it would help improve corners of the world that terrorists find opportunistic. Sadly, some of the nation building, which our country entered into with genuinely good intentions, has backfired.

We now know that no matter how sophisticated our military is and no matter how much money we spend, nation building is far more complicated that we originally thought. Additionally, it may likely create more terrorists than it quells.

Imagine if China had a military base in Montana. Or Russia had a military base in Texas. How would Americans feel about that?

We would likely feel insulted, oppressed, and mad. Some Americans would likely seek to actively oppose those bases. And the escalation would continue. That is what we have seen in the Middle East with our involvement there.

Libertarians believe that war is justified only in defense.

We are opposed to a draft. If a war is just and necessary, Americans of all backgrounds will volunteer to fight it. We believe that a draft enforced by law is no different from slavery.

Libertarians believe that American foreign policy should focus more heavily on developing communications among peoples and finding peaceful resolutions to disagreements. We believe in maintaining a military that can defend us well if we are attacked and we believe part of that is ensuring that our troops are not so war-weary as they have been in recent years.

From a financial standpoint, consider $574 billion taxpayer dollars are proposed to be allocated to the department of defense in 2018. This represents nearly 55 percent of the entire federal budget.

Compare that military budget spending to approximately 6 percent for Medicare and health, education, and Veterans each and, 3 percent for social security/unemployment, science and energy and the environment each.

If you want to really know what is really going on and valued in a society, follow the money.