Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat down with CNBC's Brian Sullivan for a wide-ranging interview on his anti-war foreign policy, his economic plans for the country, and how to revitalize the middle class. In the first segment he discusses foreign policy.
"Number one, we have to unravel the warfare business, the warfare machine, that is bankrupting our country. Paul Kennedy, a Yale historian, has done this extraordinary history on the decline of empires. And every empire in the last 500 years, its death knell was overextending its military abroad. We've spent $8 trillion on war in the last 20 years, since 2002, that has gotten us nothing. It has made us less safe. The Chinese spent $8 trillion during that same period building ports, bridges, roads, schools, universities, and hospitals. And they're now the principal creditor for almost every nation in Latin America and Africa."
"Our wars have bankrupted the middle class in this country," he said. "We were told in 1992 that we were going to cut [defense spending] from $662 billion [per year], we were going to get a peace dividend... We were going to cut it to $200 billion, which would be enough money to arm ourselves to the teeth at home so we would be too expensive to ever invade, and reinvest that intellectual capital and currency capital into building an industrial base in this country and it never happened. Instead of going to $200 billion, we went to $1.3 trillion."
"We spend more on our military than the next ten nations combined, and it is not making our country richer, it is making us poorer," Kennedy said. "We can lower our deficits, we can bring a lot of that money home."
"Number one, we have to unravel the warfare business, the warfare machine, that is bankrupting our country. Paul Kennedy, a Yale historian, has done this extraordinary history on the decline of empires. And every empire in the last 500 years, its death knell was overextending its military abroad. We've spent $8 trillion on war in the last 20 years, since 2002, that has gotten us nothing. It has made us less safe. The Chinese spent $8 trillion during that same period building ports, bridges, roads, schools, universities, and hospitals. And they're now the principal creditor for almost every nation in Latin America and Africa."
"Our wars have bankrupted the middle class in this country," he said. "We were told in 1992 that we were going to cut [defense spending] from $662 billion [per year], we were going to get a peace dividend... We were going to cut it to $200 billion, which would be enough money to arm ourselves to the teeth at home so we would be too expensive to ever invade, and reinvest that intellectual capital and currency capital into building an industrial base in this country and it never happened. Instead of going to $200 billion, we went to $1.3 trillion."
"We spend more on our military than the next ten nations combined, and it is not making our country richer, it is making us poorer," Kennedy said. "We can lower our deficits, we can bring a lot of that money home."
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