Aiming for Moral Authority

Senator Elizabeth Warren weighs in on the importance of a values-driven military and her efforts to reduce defense spending

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With the ringing in of the The New Year comes the arrival of the nation’s nearly 858 billion defense spending package—a 45 billion increase over President Joe Biden’s budget request that lawmakers say will advance the U.S. "strategic competition with China and Russia."

After Congress spent a year questioning military officials and drafting the bill’s supporting elements, the annual "must-pass” National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the Pentagon, made it through the Senate with just two weeks remaining in the 2022 congressional session. Eighty-three Senators voted in favor of the bill, while just 11 opposed it. One of those 11 was instrumental in putting the bill together: Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Warren serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is responsible for drafting the legislation. As she has in years past, Warren voted against the measure as a matter of principle. She believes the spending authorized for the military is too high when other issues like childcare and climate change remain, in her view, underfunded.

For Warren, that vote is integral to her view on what constitutes U.S. national security.

“We are stronger when we live our values,” Warren tells Newsweek in an exclusive interview. “The rest of the world is more likely to align with us, to trust us in a time of danger, and to follow our lead if they know that we hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard.”