Two bedrock beliefs of traditional conservatism are fiscal discipline and strong national defense. Likewise, two general rules of budgetary reform in times of economic crisis are, first, to scale back expenditures rather than raise taxes, and, second, to look at defense for some of the deepest cuts. Something therefore will have to give.
In the last two years the United States has piled up record $1.3 trillion annual budget deficits. That red ink has pushed the national debt close to $14 trillion, approaching 98 percent of the nation’s annual gross domestic product, a peacetime record. Worse still, there is no end in sight to this massive borrowing. Trillion-dollar budget deficits are scheduled at least through 2014 and will take our national debt beyond $18 trillion.
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These staggering figures have caused near-panic throughout the world, as the Federal Reserve desperately prints $600 billion to monetize some of the huge debt, gold soars to over $1,400 an ounce, and Washington is chastised as profligate by everyone from Germany to China, which worries about the solvency of its massive surplus dollar accounts.
No wonder, then, that the quest for fiscal sanity became the signature of the Tea Party movement and fueled the general Republican political renaissance. But amid the talk of across-the-board budget freezes, radical entitlement reform, and elimination of entire programs, is it fair to spare defense from the anticipated 2011 slashing?
At first glance, clearly no. After all, the United States will spend over $680 billion on defense this year alone — slated to rise to $712 billion next year — and well over $1 trillion when you include defense-related expenses that are not counted in the official Pentagon budget. Depending on how one categorizes the figures, defense spending now represents over 19 percent of the federal budget and is nearing 5 percent of the nation’s GDP. Over the last nine years, the Pentagon’s budget has grown on average by about 9 percent each year, more than triple the rate of inflation — quite apart from the supplementary spending on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Indeed, America now accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s military spending. That is six times as much as its supposed chief rival, China. And when America’s defense expenditure is added to the military budgets of Europe, as well as those of Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and other allies, the Western alliance accounts for nearly three-fourths of all global outlay on defense. Why can’t fiscal conservatives at least freeze Pentagon spending in an era of near–financial collapse?
In addition, national security and global influence are not always measured by arms alone. China, with an economy one-third the size of ours and a military budget one-sixth the size of ours, is increasing its profile in Africa and Latin America and is insidiously reminding Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan that the time is approaching when a near-bankrupt United States either cannot or will not support them in times of existential crisis. Flush with nearly $2.5 trillion in cash reserves (the result of huge ongoing trade surpluses and budgetary discipline), China reminds both neutrals and rivals that it has plenty of money to buy, bribe, or persuade its way with nations — and will have even more in the years ahead, even as its chief rival, the United States, will have less.
Not only accelerated wear and tear on a reduce stock of armor and aircraft, but our industrial base has withered into the ether of peace long prior to our current description of warfare as nothing more than “overseas contingency operations.”
Can anyone locate where the factories are today that had a daily output of tanks, personnel carriers, and all craft in the seas and air matching if not exceeding that of the Axis Powers who had planned for years the ramp-up of their war making machines?
Our military will have to make more of less because our industries simply no longer have the means to make more.
We have a structural deficit of 1-1.2 trillion dollars. We have to cut federal spending by 25 percent or more in the upcoming decade to get close to balancing the budget. Senior Citizens, DOD, and Federal Employees will bear the brunt of these cuts. Its just a matter of who gets hit harder.
The recapitalization of our military is an urgent need. And if it is done intelligently, billions of dollars can be saved.
Take our Air Force, which is flying Reagan-Era fighters, Kennedy-Era tankers, and Eisenhower-Era bombers. All of these aircraft can be replaced by new-built aircraft base on existing designs. The development costs for the F-22 and F-35 are sunk, so the real cost is per unit. The B-1 bomber design is still highly capable, and building new versions of this aircraft would save billions over developing a new long-range bomber.
To save billions more, consider that the bulk of the cost of aircraft is in their sophisticated electronic weapons and counter-measures systems. But these are only needed against enemies with sophisticated anti-aircraft defenses. If we stripped down the technology on, say, 80% of our deployed aircraft, and retained an elite force for heavily defended targets, this would also save billions.
I don't think we can avoid cutting the defense. The only way to ensure that we have any military in the future, is to spend less on it now. There will be repercussions, but the US just can't solve all of the world's problems right now.
I think our only options are to cut our military and focus just on self defense, or not cut the military, go insolvent, and lose all of it.
I mostly agree with the substance of the article - that defense is important and we are not spending a particularly large portion of GDP on it at the moment, and the cause of the current huge budget deficits mostly lie elsewhere (especially middle class entitlements neither party has the courage or realism to reform). I do expect that defense spending will be reduced in the short term and doubt it can be helped, but wish it could be.
I do however have an historical quibble with one point the professor makes in passing, about Korea. He writes "For the first six months of hard fighting in Korea, the military’s obsolete tanks, anti-tank weapons, and planes proved no match for Soviet-supplied T-34 tanks and MiG-15 jets."
First a lesser point on ground forces. While the lack of readiness of Task Force Smith is proverbial, much of this is merely a matter of transport and urgency. The first men to the theater in the summer came from Japan with whatever they had as occupation forces, and that meant only light Chaffee tanks and WW II era bazookas. Superior tanks in the states simply took longer to get to the theater because ships don't cross the pacific in a day. The arsenal had plenty of weapons equal to or superior to the modest fleet of T-34/85s the North Koreans possessed. By the time superior armor had reached the theater, however, much of the small North Korean armor force had already been destroyed. Some by improved bazookas airlifted to the theater faster than tanks, some by artillery or light tanks, but much of it wiped out from the air, especially by napalm. Which proved the first truly successful air to ground munition for anti armor missions.
Which brings me to my main point - that the comment is inaccurate in substance when it comes to the air force. The far east air force in Japan had over 1000 modern planes on the day the North invaded. The North Koreans had fewer than 200 WW II era propeller planes. As soon as MacArthur turned US airpower loose, the North was knocked out of the skies in a matter of days, and US airpower ruled the penisula absolutely.
The North Koreans didn't have any MiG-15s, not then. The first jet MiGs appeared over Korea in tiny numbers in October, and they intervened in force only in November when the Chinese entered the war. This was after the initiative had already passed to UN forces and the North Koreans themselves had been defeated.
The MiG-15 was indeed superior to the bulk of the US airpower in the theater, which was mostly straight wing jets a few years older - the F-80, F-84, and F9F Panther for the navy, and Meteors for Commonwealth allies (UK and Australian). It was no better than equal to the F-86, however, which was already available in numbers - but in the states, not in theater.
F-86s made it to Korea in November on the heels of Chinese intervention and in some numbers by December. There was no quality differential at that point, and the F-86s outscored the MiGs by at least 5 to 1. Through 1951 they weren't numerous enough to project total UN air superiority over the Chinese border into Manchuria, but the UN still had air superiority over the whole penisula proper. By the end of 1951 the Russian pilots flying them from bases in Manchuria rarely ventured far to the south and lost heavily when they did.
Thus, it was not a story of lack of technical equipment or a hollow air force outclassed by the latest enemy weaponry. There was a deployment issue getting top of the line stuff to Korea when the Russians backed Chinese intervention with a substantial upgrade to the communist air forces involved - long after the North Korean air force had been crushed. This was merely part of the strategic surprise of Chinese intervention generally. It was not an issue of technical preparedness or military funding - when it came to the air war.
Was this article supposed to be defending the defense budget? The first half convinced me that cuts were necessary and appropriate, then the second half confused me by laying out a mediocre argument against it.
You had me at "America now accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s military spending." Let's cut that back a bit.
