Audit of the Conventional Wisdom: Why is the Defense Budget So Big?

Friday, April 02, 2010 The Center's series Audit of the Conventional Wisdom continues with an analysis of the defense budget--the largest since World War II. Is it a rational response to the threats and the dangers that the United States faces--or not? Benjamin Friedman is a PhD student at the MIT Department of Political Science. He is a member of the Center's Security Studies Program and is a research fellow in defense and homeland security studies at the Cato Institute.