Hillary Clinton has called on Congress to slash the Pentagon's budget and shift funding to 'domestic renewal' and foreign diplomacy, arguing that expensive weapons systems from the Cold War and war on terror are no longer needed.In a lengthy essay published in Foreign Affairs magazine on Friday, the former secretary of state laid out her vision for restructuring U.S. defense spending, while accusing the Trump administration of mismanagement.'Today's competition is not a traditional global military contest of force and firepower,' Clinton wrote. 'Dusting off the Cold War playbook will do little to prepare the United States for adversaries that use new tools to fight in the gray zone between war and peace, exploit its open Internet and economy to undermine American democracy, and expose the vulnerability of many of its legacy weapons systems,' she continued. Share this article Share 2.4k shares Clinton argued for slashing funding for some of the American military's most expensive weapons systems and embracing 'a broader approach that encompasses threats not just from intercontinental ballistic missiles and insurgencies but also from cyberattacks, viruses, carbon emissions, online propaganda, and shifting supply chains.'She said that expensive American weapons systems are ill-suited for a military confrontation with China, which she said has developed 'asymmetric' capabilities that could easily challenge technically superior arms.'While the American military was fighting costly land wars in the Middle East, China was investing in relatively cheap anti-access/area-denial weapons, such as antiship ballistic missiles, which pose credible threats to the United States' expensive aircraft carriers,' Clinton wrote.'China's advances mean that the United States' air and sea superiority in the region is no longer ensured,' Clinton continued.'This isn't competition from a military equal but a new kind of asymmetric threat. Americans learned in the sands of Afghanistan and Iraq that asymmetry can be deadly, and the same is true in the skies and seas of East Asia,' she wrote. She argued that the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is the 'poster child for this political reality.''Development of the plane ran way behind schedule and over budget, and it is estimated to cost $1 trillion over its lifespan, yet it is considered untouchable,' Clinton wrote.'The air force sank so much time and money into the project that turning back became unthinkable, especially since the F-35 is the only fifth-generation aircraft currently being manufactured in the United States,' she said.Clinton argued that money saved by slashing the Pentagon's budget could be redirected toward diplomacy, resear