Why do we need to spend more on defense?
As currently constituted, the American military cannot possibly obtain the capabilities it needs to respond to unexpected or unpredictable threats—much less to meet every demand America has asked it to perform over the last decade.

America's Air Force, for example, is far too old. The average age of ships in the fleet has soared from nine in 1973 to 24 years old today. Many planes are older than their pilots. In short, policymakers are telling the Air Force to do more with less.

The story is much the same for the Navy, which has pressing modernization requirements. Though Congress has approved building a modern fleet of 326 ships by 2020, it has approved spending that falls at least $5 billion short per year of what's needed to make that fleet a reality. Today, the Navy has 276 hulls.

Meanwhile, the active-duty Army, which had 18 divisions at the end of the Cold War, currently consists of only 10 divisions. The past six years have showed that the Army needs to be large enough to sustain large-scale operations without having to deploy the same units multiple times or extend their deployments over the duration of the mission.  Further, the Army needs to equip its force with new weapons to meet it mission requirements in the future.