It’s no secret that Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions has been eyed as a potential Secretary of Defense should Trump win the race for the White House next Tuesday. Now, as a top advisor to the GOP nominee, he’s detailing the form that a Trump Administration defense policy would likely take on.
In an interview with Defense News, Sen. Sessions painted a Reagan-esque picture of Trump’s national strategy, which would involve rebuilding U.S. military forces and focusing on enhancing protective technologies. The Senator said that Trump’s aim would be “peace through strength.”
“He believes that the military has been degraded. It needs to be rebuilt,” Sessions told the publication.
“That means that you have to place American national interests first.”
The Senator said that restoring the country’s military might would first have to be done through increased military spending. As a conservative leader, it’s a plan that he admittedly begrudges. However, he believes that there is a key differentiation between increased spending to shield the nation against foreign foes, and plans that would run up costs over bureaucratic requests.
“President Trump will not do the one thing that President Obama and Hillary Clinton favor. That if you increase defense spending, you have to increase the non-defense spending at the same amount. That is just absurd,” he said.
“I mean, we are in a crisis worldwide today. Things are going wrong in all corners of the globe. We are going to have to be stronger and spend more. We certainly don’t need them to spend more on items that are less critical to the national security such as our general overall spending. He’ll have a clear position on that quite different than the current administration’s policies.”
Other foundational elements of Trump’s defense plan, according to Senator Sessions, include defeating ISIS, toeing a stronger line against aggressive foreign powers like China and Russia, and ensuring that federal defense contractors are prevented from over-inflating costs.
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