I am definitely a fan of a strong defense being an effective deterrent. That was Western Germany and it worked. If you do not invest enough in defense, you will gain adversaries. You should not wait until the barbarians are at the gates and then scrounge around for bows and arrows. Those bows and arrows have to be ready _before_ the barbarians arrive. And you need to have archers, who are trained to use them. That takes years. You have to be ready years before anyone makes a move. I also think there is no higher form of cowardice and shamelessness than expecting foreigners to protect you, while you lounge around and wax poetic about world peace, climate change, feminist diplomacy, and how you want to spend the money you save on defense on more vacation days, vegan school lunches, and free bus tickets. As the European NATO has done for decades, with the USA. I think that is incredibly outrageous behavior and the US Presidents have _all_ complained about it, and their complaints are entirely justified. The only reason they haven't abandoned us, entirely, in exasperation, is because of countries like Poland and the Scandinavians.