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Only those who seek to degrade our military to put it on a par with our most significant competitors, or fools, would suggest massive force reductions.

To quote from his web site:

As an Air Force veteran, Ron Paul believes national defense is the single most important responsibility the Constitution entrusts to the federal government.

In Congress, Ron Paul voted to authorize military force to hunt down Osama bin Laden and authored legislation to specifically target terrorist leaders and bring them to justice.

Today, however, hundreds of thousands of our fighting men and women have been stretched thin all across the globe in over 135 countries – often without a clear mission, any sense of what defines victory, or the knowledge of when they’ll be permanently reunited with their families.

Acting as the world’s policeman and nation-building weakens our country, puts our troops in harm’s way, and sends precious resources to other nations in the midst of an historic economic crisis.

Taxpayers are forced to spend billions of dollars each year to protect the borders of other countries, while Washington refuses to deal with our own border security needs.

Congress has been rendered virtually irrelevant in foreign policy decisions and regularly cedes authority to an executive branch that refuses to be held accountable for its actions.

Far from defeating the enemy, our current policies provide incentive for more to take up arms against us.

That’s why, as Commander-in-Chief, Dr. Paul will lead the fight to:

* Make securing our borders the top national security priority.

* Avoid long and expensive land wars that bankrupt our country by using constitutional means to capture or kill terrorist leaders who helped attack the U.S. and continue to plot further attacks.

* Guarantee our intelligence community’s efforts are directed toward legitimate threats and not spying on innocent Americans through unconstitutional power grabs like the Patriot Act.

* End the nation-building that is draining troop morale, increasing our debt, and sacrificing lives with no end in sight.

* Follow the Constitution by asking Congress to declare war before one is waged.

* Only send our military into conflict with a clear mission and all the tools they need to complete the job – and then bring them home.

* Ensure our veterans receive the care, benefits, and honors they have earned when they return.

* Revitalize the military for the 21st century by eliminating waste in a trillion-dollar military budget.

* Prevent the TSA from forcing Americans to either be groped or ogled just to travel on an airplane and ultimately abolish the unconstitutional agency.

* Stop taking money from the middle class and the poor to give to rich dictators through foreign aid.

As President, Ron Paul’s national defense policy will ensure that the greatest nation in human history is strong, secure, and respected.

Sounds great at first glance, but detail by detail review reveals that this is simply Dr. Paul trying to garner the military vote.

* Make securing our borders the top national security priority.

This is a general statement that any candidate can say; notice that no specific proposals are made that will rid the nation of muslims and traffickers of humans and drugs. Also, there are enormous and growing financial ties between mideast terror/caliphate states and the narco-states of Central and South America, which offer easy access to the U.S. If we can't shut down the dollars flowing to Venezuela in exchange for oil (Citgo gas stations continue to enjoy legal U.S. business status (Hugo and Iran say "thanks for supporting us")), there is no way that the narco-terror-connection would not be enriched under a Dr. Paul administration. Are the Central and South American nations with us or against us ? Quite a complex picture. Think NAFTA, tractor trailers bringing tons of Mexican produce to U.S. markets, U.S. manufacturers building facilities in Mexico, etc. Illegal drugs continue to find their way to America - billions of dollars worth every year - despite the U.S. government's herculean efforts to stop them. Exactly how can a U.S. President, at this point, stop the out-of-control drug cartels that now are running rampant in Mexico ? Legalizing drugs would simply give them more power and money. Mr. Paul has this sort of zen-opposites-kind-of plan; somehow closing the border with Mexico, but legalizing drugs in the U.S. Basically, U.S. big business-big-government, through making practically every rogue-regime, tryannical, narco-state, terrorist-state and communist state a trading partner, has made modern technology available to them - and quite cheaply, without them having to invent or produce a single thing themselves. They can figure out how to put a bomb in their underwear to kill innocent people and sneak on an airplane, but they can't figure out how to be friendly and productive enough to feed themselves.

* Avoid long and expensive land wars that bankrupt our country by using constitutional means to capture or kill terrorist leaders who helped attack the U.S. and continue to plot further attacks.

Sounds great, but killing terrorist leaders is only a temporary setback for the overall war between islam and non-islamic civilization; it does not do anything to stop the creation of new terrorist leaders. They are created by the public speech and teachings of immams the world over, who continue to press home the ideas of hating Jews, Christians, atheists, etc. The hatred of Judeo-Christian civilization, America, Western Civilization and any sort of atheist can be heard every week at over 2,000 mosques inside the U.S.

* Guarantee our intelligence community’s efforts are directed toward legitimate threats and not spying on innocent Americans through unconstitutional power grabs like the Patriot Act.

I don't want the government to spy on innocent Americans, but I do want them to spy on the mosque a few miles from my house. I know that they are working towards a day when my State - and every other one - will be overrun with muslim politicians who plan on (and already are) instituting sharia law. islam should be banned in the U.S. as the treasonous operation that it is. Trouble is, without such banning, and without the ability to spy on them, those "nice people" continue to plot future attacks and send money to terror operations/nations. At the end of the day, law enforcement has always had the ability to gather information which indicts someone and then bring them up on charges if they see fit, and ultimately they must decide whether they will bring charges against innocent people who are simply political enemies (abusing their office) or whether they will only use the information they gain to bring charges against those who truly are breaking the law as far as they can tell. The enemy is now making use of our secure and mobile communications system, i.e., the cell phone - even disposable pre-paid phone cards. Terror plans can be securely transmitted via throway phone numbers. The ideal path, as I've said, would be to actually engage islam; we would not have to have the clandestine spying then. But since that's not politically going to happen very soon, again, we can't sit back and limit our own spying efforts. When spying starts targeting anything other than islam, or any other American-existential threat, then those targets need to be left alone. As it stands now, I am more concerned with foreign powers that try to break into my computer on a daily basis than American spying on me, then again, I am not plotting a terror attack and the spying would reveal material that would bore the spy to tears. Of great concern to me, as well, is Eric Holder's Justice department which is politicized to the point of criminality. Notice the issue is not the laws, but the fact that the Justice Department is ignoring them.

* End the nation-building that is draining troop morale, increasing our debt, and sacrificing lives with no end in sight.

Yes, I agree that military nation-building is not a good avenue, it's based on immediate-post-WWII thinking and most people are too young to remember WWII and today is a much different situation than that time. IMHO, the first thing to work on with so-called "backward" nations is morals and therefore missionaries should be the first ones in. The House hearing by Rep. Smith today on C-Span demonstrates that the call for improvements in the Chinese government's treatment of it's citizens is largely driven by Christians. We should not trade with a nation until it's morals are on solid ground, IMHO.

* Follow the Constitution by asking Congress to declare war before one is waged.

This would make the U.S. hang back far too long to be effective and history has demonstrated that this causes wars to be very long and costly in every way. Congress does not act quickly on complex political issues. And today, Congress is far more "bought off" by lobbyists than they were 200 years ago, so their focus is not on making stands on geo-political issues, but passing legislation desired by their key support groups. Consequently, all sorts of regional tyrant actions around the world would be happening with the U.S. on the sidelines. The present system - if the President actually follows it - gives the U.S. the flexibility to stomp on problems quickly if necessary without them becoming a domestic political football. Of course, if the President drags out the war for nation-building, and then defies Congress in keeping the war going, then the present system does not work well. We simply need to limit our Presidential frontrunner nominations to those who have the right mindset of just nipping things in the bud and not being weak, but balancing that with knowing when the military targets are destroyed, it's time to bring the military home. They're not a construction company, they're a destruction company.

* Only send our military into conflict with a clear mission and all the tools they need to complete the job – and then bring them home.

Yes, I agree. However, getting Congress to buy in to any cause of war other than a large-scale attack where thousands of Americans are killed in that one attack - simply does not happen. So this claim really means that only when there is a catastrophic attack would the Dr. Paul administration do anything. Little attacks, we'd just have to grin and bear them. We have allies that we're close with to varying degrees: Japan, Australia, some Europe, Western Europe, etc. If one of them gets hit with an all-out invasion from a large foe where we only have a few months warning of trouble, we would never get ourselves over there in time to be of any help. South Korea; they'd just be overrun. No more LG electronics, sorry, they're "owned" by the Chinese now. Ooops, I meant to say North Koreans.

* Ensure our veterans receive the care, benefits, and honors they have earned when they return.

Yes, every decent American wants that; I have not heard any candidate say they are against that.

* Revitalize the military for the 21st century by eliminating waste in a trillion-dollar military budget.

Yes, every decent American wants that; I have not heard any candidate say they are against that.

* Prevent the TSA from forcing Americans to either be groped or ogled just to travel on an airplane and ultimately abolish the unconstitutional agency.

Personally, I refuse to use commericial aviation because of this. However, what is his plan to keep alibaba off the plane ? If he does not say "profiling" then his plan will fail.

* Stop taking money from the middle class and the poor to give to rich dictators through foreign aid.

Sounds a bit progressive in terms of only speaking of middle class and poor - is that a nice little code for young people that he will continue to "tax the rich". Tax all at the same rate. As far as no foreign aid, I agree 100%. Other candidates who were reasonably conservative agreed with stopping so-called foreign aid. One has to realize that some of those dollars are sent back to the U.S. in the form of sales for U.S. companies that export, so there would be political lobbying pressure to overcome. This is why conservatives seek "pure" conservative candidates because they know political pressure must be overcome by a President with principles.