Rep. Adam Smith’s 2025-03-12 interview with Quincy Institute: a summary and response
On March 12, 2025, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) was interviewed on a webinar with Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft. As former chair and ranking member of the the House Armed Services Committee, Smith (no relation) is an important voice on military matters in Congress.
Quincy Institute and Rep. Smith chose the title A New Approach to America’s Role in the World, but other than the promising title and a seemingly empty acknowledgement that the U.S. can’t dominate the globe — that the unipolar moment has passed — Rep. Smith still supports the status quo: an empire of 750 overseas military bases, massive Pentagon budgets, and an aggressive foreign policy that uses U.S. military power to settle disputes worldwide.
Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute asked Rep. Smith why the U.S. still has 750 or so military bases. Smith gave a historical explanation for it. After the two world wars, especially right after WWII, the U.S. was the only superpower in the world. In the late 1940s the U.S. economy accounted for 90% of the world’s manufacturing, he said. The U.S. provided security for much of the world and, with the Marshall Plan and other programs, the U.S. built up many nations’ economies, including the economies of Germany and Japan. Smith admitted that U.S. interventions weren’t always benevolent or smart. He mentioned Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Libya as (well-intentioned) big mistakes. But the U.S. raised up nations in Asia and Europe, including many former Soviet bloc countries, into modern democracies with healthy economies. He said the U.S. won WW II (ignoring the large role that the Soviets played). He pointed to the first war in Iraq as being a success. Smith didn’t mention the second war in Iraq, the numerous interventions in Latin America, the arming of Indonesia that resulted in the deaths of up to one million leftists, or the war in Serbia. And he barely mentioned the war in Ukraine and certainly not the background to that war (NATO expansion, CIA involvement, U.S. support for the 2014 Maidan coup, arming of far-right militias, etc).
In the interview, Smith repeatedly emphasized that it’s a big mistake for the U.S. to try to dominate the world. That’s no longer possible, he said, because of the rise of other great powers.
I ask: if you agree that we can’t dominate the world, why not, then, close some of the 750 military bases?! I’ve asked him this. He doesn’t agree that they need to be closed.
Likewise, given the impossibility of the U.S. dominating or policing the globe, why not allow China to have its sphere of influence near its borders, including in Taiwan, in recognition of China’s power and history? But in the interview Smith pointed to China’s expansionist policies, saying that it is claiming land belonging to five or more countries in its vicinity. Smith was a big supporter of the Indo-Pacific (China) Deterrence Initiative that arms Taiwan and its allies to defend against Chinese aggression. But Smith also warned against stumbling into a Cold War with China. Compared to some Republican hawks, Smith is a moderate. But in his voting, he’s generally pro-war.
Similarly, if one acknowledges that the U.S. can’t dominate the globe, shouldn’t the U.S. have allowed Russia to have its sphere of influence in, at least, Georgia and Ukraine? There’s no need to force NATO into divided nations such as Ukraine, with large Russian-speaking provinces!
When Parsi mentioned how polling suggests that among voters who voted for Biden in 2000 but who stayed home in 2024, a plurality (29%) mentioned U.S. support for the Israeli war on Gaza as a reason. Smith agreed that on Gaza, the Democrats overdid support for Israel; but Israel did have a right to defend itself.
Smith supports free speech rights for Palestinian supporters in the U.S. but doesn’t think they should be able to break the law, or intimidate people. (Smith’s house was targeted with graffiti and with early morning noisy protests. Some of Smith’s in-person town halls were interrupted by shouting protesters.) I say: criminalizing encampments and sit-ins in universities is unreasonable, since students are generally given leeway in such matters; their actions inconvenience people at most.
Smith said he supports more emphasis on diplomacy. Talking to the enemy is no risk. It’s not as if talking to the enemy is dangerous because we might be duped.
Parsi asked Rep. Smith why the Dems now appear to be the more pro-war party. Kamala Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney and said she wanted the U.S. to be the most lethal fighting force, etc. Trump was able to run as the peace candidate.
Smith said that part of the problem is that if the Democrats agree to negotiations, or pursue some less aggressive policies, Republicans accuse the Democrats of being soft on Defense. So, Democrats tend to outdo themselves in being hawkish.
[I think other explanations involve Russiagate, Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia, and the Democrats’ demonization of Russia. Dems’ support for the war in Ukraine blind them to the desirability of negotiations.]
Smith said that the far left anti-war activists are never satisfied with pacifist moves. They view U.S. foreign policy as fundamentally harmful. He disagrees with that and thinks the antiwar left want to dismantle too much of the Pentagon. There really are nasty players in the world. Smith lists China, Iran, the Houthis, North Korea, and Russia as examples. He says that it’s a good thing that North Korea didn’t win the Korean War. Otherwise we’d be in much worse shape. South Korea is democratic and thriving, though he admits they’re having trouble now (attempted coup, etc).
The million dollar question is: how much of our adversaries’ aggression is a response to U.S. meddling, expansion, and aggression?
Smith says the voters want lower taxes, a balanced budget, and increased spending on programs that they like. Obviously, that’s impossible. GOP tax cuts need to stop, he says.
Fraud and Waste
Military Spending as a Percent of GDP
- According to usgovernmentspending.com, since 1945, military spending was at the lowest, as a percent of GDP, in the late 1990s. But it’s near that low now. Is this accurate? Does it consider total military spending?
Military spending as a percent of GDP - According to Statista, U.S. military spending was $916 billion in 2023; next highest was China, at $296 B. Then Russia at $109 B. It shows that the U.S. spends more than the next nine countries combined, despite being lower in population than China by a factor of four. The first chart in this article from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation shows that the U.S. has historically devoted a larger share of its economy to defense than other G7 countries. The U.S. spends about 3.4%; the next highest is U.K., at 2.3%. Worldwide spending by all countries decreased from over 6% in 1960 to 2.4% in 2023.
- The GDP is artificially inflated by (1) the over-financialization of the economy, (2) the high cost and waste of our healthcare system, (3) high debt leverage, and (4) inflated housing and equity markets. These effects increase the denominator (the GDP) of the percent.
- The Pentagon budget of $852 billion doesn’t include military-related spending in the DOE, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the State Department, Homeland Security, war-related interest on the national debt, and elsewhere. If you include such spending, the real yearly military budget is closer to $1.4 trillion (according to a QI report by Andrew Cockburn), so the percent of GDP is higher. But perhaps similar adjustments could be made to the historical calculations, so perhaps this is not an effective argument. Is it?
- Looking at military spending as a percent of the discretionary federal budget is more damning. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, 62% of discretionary spending went to the military. The Congressional Budget Office puts the figure at 54%, if you include spending on veterans.
- The Pentagon has never passed an audit.
- Pentagon waste ends up causing wars and killing people. Fraud in domestic spending is less damaging. The history of repeated disastrous, fraudulent, and/or stupid wars suggests that much of the Pentagon budget is not only wasted but used for downright evil purposes.
Even if it were true that fraud and waste in the Pentagon are comparable to that in domestic programs, why are Republicans taking a chainsaw only to the latter? In fact, they want to raise Pentagon spending. Is there a rule that military spending must be above a certain percent?