Vice President Kamala Harris certainly grasps the fact that voters respond to promise that their cost of living will come down, but they rarely understand the implication for the economy of government intervention. Harris’ calls for price controls on drugs and groceries and promises of tax cuts for the poor or benefits increases fails to explain how and who will pay for them.

At the same time, Donald Trump’s call for 10 percent tariffs on all imports and 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, plus his threat to deport many of the estimated 20 million illegal aliens currently in the United States, not only amounts to higher prices, but it will devastate the agricultural, restaurant, construction, and hospitality industries. It is certainly not a free trader perspective. Thus, neither party’s perspective offers a clear path to growth, offsetting tax hikes, like tariffs, or increased federal revenue with which to pay for all the benefits they are offering.

Since the US is both the principal and ultimate arbiter of international order, whose power rests on the sound management of its economy, both examples of this illiteracy endanger not just the American economy, but that of other states around the world. Worse yet, these examples of misconceived economic thinking come at a time when international challenges are rapidly multiplying. Indeed, bipartisan reports describe the American military as increasingly maladapted to contemporary and future threats.

These reports underscore the urgent need for comprehensive modernization, recapitalization, and increases of both conventional and nuclear arsenals due to mounting challenges from the axis of authoritarianism: China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. Indeed, even the Biden administration, which cannot be accused of partiality towards nuclear weapons, has stated the need for modernization and investment in newer and more nuclear weapons and, recently, went so far as to alter nuclear employment guidance.

At the same time, Americans have equally urgent domestic pressures that must be seriously addressed but are not discussed. These include the need to reduce deficits, ensure long-term non-inflationary growth, increase the labor participation rate, maintain technological leadership, reform and simplify the tax code, and apply existing immigration law while determining if new laws are needed. Yet nobody is seriously raising these domestic issues let alone addressing the fact that a strong economy is needed to address defense challenges—and build the military needed.

For example, neither campaign mentioned that servicing the national debt, for the first time in history, exceeded defense spending in 2024. This fact represents an unmistakable sign of decline and is a canary in the coal mine that the nation must reduce domestic redistribution programs while also carefully employing military force when absolutely necessary.

Neither should a response to these challenges lead the nation, as some Republicans argue, into a new unilateralism that would isolate the US from its allies and lead to further chaos. Nor can the nation afford a progressive policy of ever greater spending on redistribution programs—without paying for them.

Both sets of delusional thinking ultimately bring about the worst of all possible outcomes. Americans will find themselves with a greater probability of war and lower economic growth.

It is time both campaigns’ economic policies are subjected to tougher scrutiny by the media and voters. They must be persuaded, if not compelled, by the exigencies of politics, to explain how they will pay for future needs, balance the budget, and confront well-known challenges.

This requirement should apply to defense modernization as well. If history is any guide, only a serious threat to the nation motivates government and industry to mobilize capability for the required defense buildup. The bipartisan reports, mentioned above, clearly suggest the United States is facing a similar threat to that faced by imperial Japan and Nazi Germany before World War II began.

Vice President Harris and former President Trump must address questions going far beyond the partisan bickering that is endemic of this election. Perhaps the September 10 presidential debate will offer some clarity on important issues.

Commentators suggest that this election is about generational change. This, however, is no guarantee that change is for the better. Eastern Europe experienced great change after 1945, but it was decidedly for the worse.

Thinking strategically about medium- and long-term challenges and consequences is imperative. The abiding delusion that American prosperity, world leadership, and security is unending and self-sustaining deserves a much more rigorous evaluation. The nation may very well be standing on a precipice, and it will be the next president who either pulls the nation back or sends it over the edge. Let’s hope it is the former.

Stephen Blank, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed are his own.

Our Delusional Presidential Campaigns was originally published on Global Security Review.

Prior to their defeat, the UK’s Conservatives advocated for raising defense spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030, higher than NATO’s existing 2 percent goal for member states. Their 14-year record left much to be desired with programs cancelled, defense investment waning, and the British armed forces nearly “hollowed out.” Enter Labour, which also pledged to spend 2.5 percent of GDP on defense, subject to streamlining government finances. With an unwavering commitment to NATO and the UK’s nuclear deterrent, such an increase may be possible.

However, Labour’s immediate decision was to declare a “strategic” pause on the 6th-generation aircraft program whilst they investigate its feasibility. Chief of the General Staff General Sir Roland Walker predicted that Britain must be ready within three years to fight a war against an “axis of upheaval” of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. And when delivering his closing keynote address at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Land Warfare Conference (2024), Walker declared that he intends to double the Army in three years and triple it by 2030.

In France, foreign and defense policy are reserved for the president. However, it is the parliament that controls the purse, which is problematic when the president’s party does not hold a majority in parliament—the case for Macron. Because Macron was concerned with the strong showing of the “far right” National Rally in European Parliament elections, he abruptly dissolved the French Parliament, calling for constitutionally scripted elections in two rounds, for its 577 members (called “députés”) to be renewed.

The first round saw the National Rally come in first place, followed by an improvised grouping of “far left” communists, socialists, and greens, with Macron’s centrist party shrinking and the center-right Les Républicains barely surviving. Tactical voting in the second round had Macron’s party and the hastily coalesced left mutually desist to prevent the right-leaning candidates from reaching an absolute majority. This resulted in a hung parliament, with no pathway for coalitions leading to an absolute majority from which a prime minister could be selected.

Because of France’s election outcome, Macron might wait until September to nominate a prime minister. No one knows from which party the prime minister will come. The key is choosing a person who can ensure the government survives any parliamentary motion to terminate the government. Thus, it remains unclear how the potential ungovernability of France, until the 2027 presidential election, may affect defense policy.

The European Parliament’s swing to the right weakened German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social-Democrat Party and his Green Party allies. Former German defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, recently won reelection to the presidency of the European Commission by a more comfortable margin than five years ago, grabbing the vote of Green Party members. She pledged to implement the Green Deal, albeit in diluted form. Von der Leyen also received support from Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni, who leads the right-wing coalition immediately on von der Leyen’s right, though not as “far” right as the coalition led by French National Rally’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Victor Orban. As president of the European Commission, von der Leyen offers strong support for Ukraine, and stronger European defense—in areas where the European Commission can sway what national governments plan and implement.

At the NATO 75th anniversary summit in Washington, DC, the national leaders of member-states issued a plan for the next year, calling Ukraine’s path to membership in the alliance “irreversible.” That statement follows a document issued by NATO at the 2023 Vilnius, Lithuania, summit. For NATO accession to start, a country should not be involved in on-going conflict. So even if the NATO accession process could be accelerated for Ukraine, it is unlikely to happen any time soon. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was not given an accession schedule.

In February 2024, at the annual Munich Security Conference, long before his selection as Donald Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance rang alarm bells among Europe’s political and foreign policy elites when he voiced his opposition to military aid for Ukraine and bluntly warned that Europe will have to rely less on the US to support NATO. Political rhetoric has a place in American elections, but the fact is, American presidents change their views as resources tighten.

Regardless of whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris win the White House in November, the United States faces fiscal constraints in the years ahead because it faces a national debt that now exceeds defense spending. A perfect storm driven by the “Axis of Upheaval” may absorb American capability in the Indo-Pacific while the US is stretched thin elsewhere.

Europeans may signal which candidate they perceive as more hostile to their interest, but it is the geopolitical and budgetary math that ultimately shapes the nature of alliances. Unless Europe tackles the harsh reality that it must take its own defense seriously, French President Macron will be proven right after he once argued that it was not only an issue of sovereignty, but a matter of survival for Europe. How that works politically and fiscally is for Europe to figure out.

Christophe Bosquillon is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. He has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Political Uncertainties Are Affecting Europe’s Defense Buildup was originally published on Global Security Review.