After their big election gains, congressional Republicans must now commit to getting the federal budget under control. Unfortunately, some have advocated cutting the defense budget as part of the solution. Reducing defense spending now would be a dangerous mistake.
It’s important for conservatives to get this issue right. To that end, here are a few observations.
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First, the framers of the U.S. Constitution envisioned national defense as the priority obligation of the federal government. The first power granted to the president in Article 2 is “Commander-in-Chief of the Armies and Navies of the United States, and of the Militias of the Several States.” Of the 17 powers granted to Congress in Article 1, six relate specifically to defense, and the Constitution grants Congress the full range of authorities necessary to establish the defense of the nation (as it was then understood).
The other powers granted to Congress are permissive in nature; Congress can choose to exercise them or not. But the federal government is constitutionally obligated to defend the nation. Article 4, Section 4 states that the “United States shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion.”
That means, for those who take the Constitution seriously, that national defense is a higher priority than other areas of federal activity. While other parts of the federal budget may be presumptively suspect, spending on the national defense is not.
Second, every category of international risk facing the United States is demonstrably growing. Islamist extremists remain a formidable threat. They are fighting to reconstitute their safe havens in Afghanistan and to acquire weapons of mass destruction for use against the United States. The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism — a bipartisan panel with the status of the 9/11 Commission — found unanimously that terrorists would “more likely than not” develop and use a weapon of mass destruction against a Western city by 2013. The director of national intelligence publicly agreed with that dire assessment.
Nuclear technology and weaponry advances are cascading through rogue and failing states around the world. Pakistan — an unsteady partner facing an existential threat from terrorists — has a substantial and growing nuclear arsenal. The U.S. must be diligent in ensuring that those nuclear assets stay out of the hands of terrorists. Both North Korea and Iran are steadily increasing the range, payload, and accuracy of their ballistic missiles. No one seriously believes that the Iranians will voluntarily stop their nuclear program or that the West (except perhaps the Israelis) will use force to stop them.
Finally, the last few years have seen the rise of aggressive “peer competitors” who are developing the military capacity to challenge the vital national interests of the United States. China, for example, is rearming at a rate far ahead of American intelligence predictions.
According to most reports, China has the most sophisticated cyber-warfare capability in the world. The Chinese already boast an arsenal of advanced fighters and missiles able to deny the U.S. Navy access to the Taiwan Strait. They are building as many as five submarines per year and have established a modern submarine base on the island of Hainan. They have announced plans to build destroyers with the explicit purpose of developing a credible blue-water navy.
There is one place we can cut defense spending.
I think we can eliminate our NATO membership and leave European defense to the Europeans. It is time they spend their Euros on their security.
I disagree with this article. The only way we can be assured that we can have a vigorous military in the future is if we cut spending now - in ALL areas. We have to stop being the world's policeman, and instead focus more on self defense. That means not worrying about what happens in Iran/North Korea/Pakistan when it comes to nukes. We obviously have not been able to stop them with our big military, so instead doing everything we can to protect ourselves from a nuke making it to American soil is better than trying to stop the nuke from being produced overseas.
Modernization will have to wait until we have our spending under control. The worst scenario is us losing our military because we can't afford to pay them.
I think you are polarizing the issue. Our military does need modernizing nor should we cut back on our global commitments. However these goals are not necessarily opposed to smaller budgets if those budgets are more efficient and strategic.
I'll give one example, our military bases. We still have thousands of troops stationed in several different bases in Germany. The Soviet threat of invasion there is gone. Germany is a modern nation and can afford its own defenses. Yet we still spend billions every year just maintaining these bases, let alone the increased costs in pay just for the soldiers there.
As part of our modernization process, we should reevaluate our overseas strongholds. Pick those of most strategic value, keep them and even build them up. Remove those that are relics of past wars and conflicts. This would accomplish the twin goals of cutting costs while redeploying our troops in a fashion that is better able to respond to today's threats.
We can do the same with US bases. To much of how the military spends its money is a matter of political value to congress rather than one of real strategic value.
Going from this example and applying it to the military at large, I think we can realize that we can accomplish both these goals. It doesn't have to be one or the other.
While there is an undetermined amount of non value-added waste in defense spending that should analyzed and eliminated where practical, this article is spot on.
Obama cares nothing about national security/defense. We are guaranteed that defense spending cuts will be enthusiatically supported by Obama and his lib minions. The Republicans must not support such cuts as it will only further diminish our status as a military super power.
If ANYTHING, we should be increasing our defense spending. It would accomplish two things: 1) It sends a message to the global community that we are serious about defending our nation and continuing our role as a defender of freedom worldwide and 2) The economy would benefit from the 1000s of jobs that would be created as a result of the increased spending.
The latter is the kind of "economic stimulus" the majority of Americans can get behind. So not to increase the deficit, other programs that are non value-added, and little more than a sea of bureaucratic red tape would have to be either significantly reduced, or eliminated altogether.
I'd take national security/defense over an entitlement program any day of week.
The author states " The framers of the US Constitution envisioned national defense as the priority obligation of the federal government. However, nowhere is it stated that we cannot cut wasteful spending. This type of rationalization is exactly what most voters feel is the number one problem with government today - too much spending. We even have the Secretary of Defense telling Congress that there are several areas of defense spending we can cut without risking national security. Jim Talent is representative of the problem with many conservatives today. He doesn't even stop at freezing funding, he wants to increase it.
If we're to make any sort of dent in the this year's deficit or the debt we've accrued to date there is no other option but to cut military spending. It is arbitrary, absolutely arbitrary to to make little snips and nips here and there in the budget and not look at the over 2 trillion dollars we spend a year on the military. This staggering number must be addressed. Only 20% of this money is actually spent on defense. Please don't propagate that we cannot cut anything from the military because we EASILY can.
I disagree with the headline of this article, and the article in general. Having spent a good deal of time over the past few years as a contractor on DOD projects, the amount of money wasted was extraordinary. There is no excuse for this, and in my mind, reflects a mindset that does not value scarce resources - i.e. money. As a staunch conservative, I believe in a strong military, but limited Federal government. To achieve this, all Federal expenditures need to be pared back immediately followed by detailed analysis of the value and wisdom of major programs in order of largest first. Trust me - you would be amazed at the amount of waste in Federal government spending.
Either you're serious about cutting the deficit or you're posing.
We've seen this dance countless times: Europe protests "U.S. bases out of European Country", U.S. responds, "OK, if you insist". European government, on knees, "Please no, we don't really mean it and we need the local jobs". U.S. responds, "OK, if you insist".
"Having spent a good deal of time over the past few years as a contractor on DOD projects, the amount of money wasted was extraordinary."
As a soldier of 6 years and a contractor, I have to second that. You really have to see it to believe it.
Soldiers need to be paid, and even in peacetime, good training (proper live fire ranges and field exercises) is expensive. But there is so much nonsense we can cut, so many worthless individuals who live only to steal oxygen.
I see our government as a computer, and our constitution is our OS. When your computer is running slowly, you need to uninstall some programs and get rid of some stuff. Lets say for the sake of argument when you go to the Add/remove programs section and you scroll down and look at all the stuff you have installed you might be drawn to something like the Adobe Master Collection (Department of Defense) it's a freaking 6.8 gig install, easily the biggest program you have on there - well that is obviously the problem look how big it is, and really how often do you really use InDesign or Soundbooth or Dreamweaver? well let me tell you you are glad they are there when you need them.
But it's the other little programs that is giving your computer problems, it might just take up a few MB (monetary cost) of the hard drive, but there are so many other ways it slows things down fragmentation, running in the background and using memory (added bureaucracy)
Then you get into the other stuff like World of Warcraft (Welfare) addictive, more harm than good etc.
Our computer can run the Adobe Master Collection just fine, it's the other junk we've installed that makes us think we cant.
In response to DanielAMV,
Any liberal would simply argue to spend money and upgrade the computer. Which, to be honest, in my personal life I would do, instead of wasting my time working with an out-dated piece of non-sense. In summation; your analogy is witty, yet unhelpful.
LINK4g, you mention "over 2 trillion dollars we spend a year on the military", but Uncle Wiki says $664B, including overseas ops. What all are you including - I presume VA + ...?
Having said that, and given that I am fully in support of however large and expensive a military we need, it does seem we're spending far more than the rest of the major powers combined. What can we learn from them about how to economize in providing this central function? (Besides, "Let the US handle the world's defense," which dictum only our allies follow)
The military has waste that needs to be eliminated. We don't need to be in Okinawa; let the Japanese defend themselves. In time of war, we could always share it with them. Ditto for Korea. Our troops are basically cannon fodder. They couldn't stop a N. Korean assault. Get them out of there and let the South defend itself. How about all of the bases in Europe. Get rid of most of them. In the US we still have bases that make no sense, close them. Bases in the center of the country are worse than useless. Stop building weapons that the military doesn't want. Finally, get the military pensions out of the defense budget to make it comparable to other agencies. If the congress is unwilling to eliminate waste and re-allocate some of it to strengthening our defenses then they will lose the high ground that they have and will lose seats in 2012.
Jim Talent is crazy. Out of all the countries in the world.
1. United States 712 Billion
2. China 101 Billion
3. France 64 Billion
4. UK 58 Billion
5. Russia 53 Billion
6th place - 16th place - 317 Billion
17th place - 195th place 225 Billion
That 712 Billion dollar number does not include Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, nuclear weapons management, and intelligence.
This is ridiculous. We could cut our military in half and still be just as secure as we are now. The funny thing is about China and them building all those submariines, they're probably more prepared when things happen than we are, right now, with 1/10 of our spending.
You do realize that the US military spending is over 50% personnel costs, like salaries, benefits and pensions, do you not? The Chinese, with a standing army several times larger than our own in manpower, pays their soldiers a couple handsful of rice a day. In addition, they build all their equipment, planes and ships with cheap Chinese labor as well, with no Davis-Bacon Act, and no OSHA, no lavish benefits and pensions, and no EPA regulations.
These expenditures would be much more equal if these costs were stated in an equivalent manner.
That said, I agree with the other comments here that say that it is high time that we stop allowing half the world to free-ride under our defense umbrella. That's how they have managed to fund all these lavish welfare states for the last 60 years. Take the present value of 5% of their GDP that they might have had to spend on their own military times half a century and you're starting to talk real money. And, despite the savings on defense, they still managed to spend themselves into oblivion anyway, following the wondrous Utopian socialist path that Obama has shoved us down.
I have very little to quibble about in this article, other than those already posted; specifically 1) waste, fraud and abuse, and 2) greater shared expense by our allies.
One area that does bear greater examination is your comparison of today's force level with that of previous eras. To take one example in particular, you cite the size of the Air Force, now as small as it was before Pearl Harbor. I certainly hope you have taken into account the difference in capability, but in this article you apparently are concerned only with absolute numbers. Certainly the Air Force need not be as large as it was at the end of WWII, when a single target can be destroyed or heavily damaged by a small number of aircraft with precision-guided munitions as opposed to dozens or hundreds of aircraft forced to utilize carpet bombing?
I'm sure you realize my point, but I would have been happier had you paid at least some recognition to the obvious weakness in your comparison.
The idea that after a decade in Iraq and Afganistan when our border is still porous that we can't cut our huge defence budget is insane. Whats next are you going to tell me that we can't leave Afganistan until 2015? You wanna talk about national security? Ok, leave Iraq and Afganistan. Seal the border. Stop importing millions of muslims whose backgrounds and feelings about jihadism we don't know into our country (bring in muslim PHD's but not millions). What are we doing in AFganistan that is so vital to our security? Building highways that the Taliban blows up? Giving Karazai billions of money when we're in debt.
