Milley is right the U.S. should reevaluate its military commitments By: Dan DePetris December 10, 2020
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley testifies during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on July 9, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP) While a $740.5 billion defense budget worked its way through Congress, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley delivered a succinct and refreshing message that appeared to go against the spirit of this bloated spending: The Defense Department must “take a hard look at what we do, where we do it,” Milley told the Brookings Institution Dec. 2. “There’s a considerable amount that the United States expends on overseas deployments, on overseas bases and locations, etc. Is every one of those absolutely, positively necessary for the defense of the United States?”