Wealth & Money Quote by Steve Forbes

Forbes knows how to make a budget argument feel like a ticking clock. By anchoring his claim to Pearl Harbor, he grabs the most emotionally efficient reference in the American national-security canon: a moment when underpreparedness is imagined to have carried a clear, catastrophic price. The move is rhetorical jujitsu. He’s not debating policy line items; he’s reframing the baseline. Defense spending becomes less a choice among priorities than a moral test of whether the country has learned the right lesson from history.

The specific intent is to turn “percentage of GDP” into a proxy for seriousness. That metric is politically handy because it doesn’t require proving that today’s threats demand specific capabilities, strategies, or reforms. It suggests decline even when absolute spending may be high, and it converts a complicated security environment into a simple chart with a frightening slope.

The subtext is as much about identity as about tanks. “World’s only superpower” flatters the listener into accepting a duty to fund primacy: if you’re the sheriff, you don’t get to bargain over ammo. It also implies that rivals are waiting for a signal of softness. “Invitation” is doing heavy work here, casting conflict as something adversaries are eager to RSVP to the moment America looks thrifty.

Context matters: Forbes speaks as a businessman and perennial advocate of hawkish, market-friendly conservatism. This is an argument for a certain kind of American order - stable for trade, predictable for capital, enforced by credible force. The warning isn’t just about war; it’s about the costs of uncertainty when the hegemon starts acting like it’s on a budget.