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- NovForum: Africom, the Militarization of Africa — Learn about the U.S. military presence in Africa and how it will affect you.
23
Balancing the Security Budget

The Obama administration promised "a sweeping shift of priorities and resources in the national security arena." The sixth yearly Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget for the United States, FY 2010 finds that this promise hasn't yet been kept. The needle tracking the overall balance of spending on offense, defense, and prevention stayed stubbornly in place. In the FY 2010 request, like the one before it, 87% of the nation's security resources were allocated to the tools of military force. This is true even excluding the appropriations for wars the country is currently fighting.
The Task Force on a Unified Security Budget -- co-chaired by Miriam Pemberton with IPS' Foreign Policy In Focus project -- supports a shift in emphasis toward a different, less militarized approach to U.S. security policy. Read the full report here.
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