The approaching debt-reduction recommendations from the “Super Committee” seem unlikely to generate a bipartisan consensus. Under the law that created the committee, if Congress doesn’t trim at least $1.2 trillion from the next ten years’ worth of spending, the difference will be made up in massive across-the-board cuts. Certain budget areas — including entitlements — will be exempt from the cuts, but defense will not. The resulting cuts to the Pentagon budget could set back our national security, research capabilities, and industrial base for decades.
Is defense spending really the problem? Defense spending currently accounts for less than 20 cents of every dollar spent by the federal government. And budget experts warn that our current level of defense spending masks shortfalls — after the last decade of “hollow growth” and extended combat, our equipment stocks have only grown “smaller and older.”
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Before he left his post as defense secretary, Robert Gates identified almost $200 billion in defense savings and canceled more than 30 programs. He warned, however, that another round of heavy cuts would be “catastrophic.”
Despite such warnings, the president has called for $400 billion in defense cuts over twelve years, and some members of Congress have called for $1 trillion or more. Further, in the event that Congress fails to cut at least $1.2 trillion in total, the aforementioned across-the-board cuts will be split evenly between security and non-security spending. That means security cuts of up to $600 billion.
Congress should remember that we are still facing very real threats. Today, we are fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and fighting al-Qaeda across the globe using intelligence and special-operations forces backed up with Predator drones and other modern technologies. We’re also protecting the nascent democratic movements in Libya and elsewhere, expanding operations to hot spots like Yemen, and rotating home a fighting force worn down by a decade of repeated, extended combat deployments.
Terror attacks are on the rise as the threat spreads around the globe — according to the National Counterterrorism Center, there were 2,534 terror attacks worldwide in 2010, nearly triple the 945 recorded five years ago.
And as if these rising threats weren’t daunting enough, a surging China is building a new aircraft carrier, several nations are developing and flying stealth aircraft to challenge our dominance of the skies, and space has becoming a battleground of its own, as the Chinese recently proved by shooting one of their own satellites out of the sky. Rogue states such as North Korea and Iran are steaming ahead, developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles that put the entire world at risk.
The last ten years have demonstrated that there is no virtue in using low-tech methods to fight low-tech enemies. The methods we use to combat simple IEDs rely on cutting-edge technologies.
Virtually every major success in the war against terrorism — from Operation Jawbreaker, which dropped special forces into Afghanistan to identify Taliban targets for destruction, to the killing of Osama bin Laden, which depended on advanced drones, stealth aircraft, and orbiting satellites as well as our SEAL marksmen — can be attributed to our superior military technology used by a superbly trained force.
Similarly, the Defense Department’s own forward-looking strategy review warns that “U.S. air forces in future conflicts will encounter integrated air defenses of far greater sophistication and lethality than those fielded by adversaries” in previous conflicts. Expert analyses call for more investment in fighter aircraft — from multi-purpose F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to the lower cost F-15s and F-18s — if we want to maintain U.S. dominance in the skies.
The Pentagon may understand the shift we’ve experienced from the Cold War to the asymmetrical shadow world of terrorists and rogue states, but does the Congress? The paradox of technology means that even the lowest-rent criminals and despots can now get hold of the most sophisticated and devastating armaments. From Pakistan to Libya to Yemen, our ability to act in ungoverned or insecure places without unduly risking American lives depends on being able to do so with stealth and precision.
Those sounding the alarm about the deficit are surely well intentioned, but they must square their cleaver-like cut proposals with our actual security needs.
— Before retiring from the Air Force, Maj. Gen. Bentley B. Rayburn was the president of the Air War College and commander of the Air Force Doctrine Center.
Hmmmm.....
This is the problem of treating the symptoms and not the disease, coupled with a screwed up priority system and a drive for preserving job security.
Lets see, our elected politicians can cut funds and programs that immediately affect a voting block, or cut funds and programs that will affect the generic Nation at some time in the future.
Enough of the people we send to offices still just don't get it. Lip service to tackling our financial crisis will not solve our financial crisis, and hoping our economy will restructure to generate sufficient monies to fund current and future spending is a pipe dream.
Where is Greece without France and Germany?
Where is America without China?
Our Super Committee, media, politicians, and public are arguing about how to trim our hair while the blade is falling on our neck in a guillotine.
I'm sorry, but this mantra that you can't touch defense spending or you aren't conservative isn't going to cut it much longer.
From 2000 to 2010 our defense spending went up 136%. Sure you could blame 9/11, but then why has it gone up 40% since 2005? Are we any safer today than we were in 2005? I personally don't think we are any safer today than we were in 2000.
That is because Brazil is not the "Great Satan." Ask Islam and the Koran why we are, along with Israel. This has nothing to do with Brazil's Defense Budget. They help and protect only their own and if you have been to the slums of Brazil they do not even do a good job of that. They are irrelevant to the designs of militant Islam. America is their great Satan who ALONE will come to Israel's defense. Bring America down and we can wipe Israel and the Jews off the face of the earth. And we can have a free reign to accomplish forcing Islam on the rest of the world, or a good portion of it. France and England are almost there. Destroying Brazil accomplishes nothing!
The next 100 years of threat assessment do not come from state actors. Not even Iran, whose most likely reason to acquire nuclear weapons is a deterrant against possible US attack. A traditional military force is incapable of fighting "militant Islam" or whatever is hiding under your bed.
The military has finally recognized that the next war will probably be predominantly conventional hence the stepped up training. Guess with whom that conventional war will be fought? However, we will probably fight it alone. Europe has traded security for entitlements. We are on the verge of doing the same and leaving ourselves defenseless. Pearl Harbor could one day appear to be minor in comparison with the position we find ourselves when China attacks us in the Pacific.
CHINA ? The same China that has a 1960s fighter, ( J-7) as it,s mainstay? The same China that still uses wood on it's Navy ships.
The idea that China poses a conventional Military threat to the USA is a utter fantasy for the next 50 years.
It is worth noting that cuts to defense programs typically lay off people who were relatively well-paid, who then don't pay taxes unless they become re-employed. A new job is not guaranteed, despite some talk of a need for engineers (for example). The people downsized from defense programs cannot necessarily become construction workers, teachers, police or fire personnel. They may also be too young to retire, have mortgages on nice houses that they can no longer pay, and dependents who need to eat regularly. Setting aside pride and educational background to apply for a service job (e.g. fast food, telemarketing) isn't a guarantee of re-employment either. Even if a lesser job is acquired, it pays less and thus the government gets less in taxes. Potentially, it pays unemployment and welfare-type benefits.
So even aside from the impacts to our physical security, which we take as a birthright, there are economic reasons why cutting defense spending is a foolish move.
This is fallacy of the broken window thinking. If just some of the brain power and productive energy going into defense expenditures goes into consumer or other private sector productive efforts, our national standard of living increases.
Defense spending does nothing to raise our standard of living -- it Keynesian economics to believe in some mystical multiplier that believes that government workers digging holes and filling them in is good for the economy.
How many Chinese troops are staged on our border with Canada or Mexico? How is our continued fighting in the middle east improving our national defense? We have established two governments committed to sharia law, while in Libya we have helped to overthrown a despot who had given up on international terrorism, only to be replaced by a bunch of Islamists.
While The National Review is not known for seeing a view different from their own, I will try anyway. Our government has spent $89 for each of the 5,610,000 American cancer deaths in the past decade. It has spent $423,244,877 for each of the 2,977 deaths caused by terrorists. Don't these priorities strike you as grossly out of balance?
It doesn't do much good to try and treat cancer patients when the hospital is leveled to the ground by a terrorist bomb, or the American economy is decimated by a few well placed strikes on our cities. 2900+ dead was not the full devastation of the 9/11 strike. It basically sent most of our airline companies into bankruptcy and disrupted our entire economy. When will the pollyannas recognize that we live in a world where evil is proliferating, not receding. Without adequate national defense cancer treatment is a joke.
While I agree 9-11 shook our economy nearly to ruin, I think you will find most of the airline industry was on the verge of bankruptcy going into the final quarter of 2011. In an unfortunate twist, one could present the case that those terrorist attacks lead to the bailout of that industry and, perhaps, set the precedence for future Govt bailouts. Also, ironically, the private company that I think saved our economy (GM) by offering the 0% financing - no longer has the ability to act quickly and boldly enough should another crisis emerge - due to a Govt bailout.
The amount of dollars spent related to the number of victims of Islamic Terror is not relevant. The whole reason the money is spent is to prevent more victims of Muslim radicals. The more relevant number is the number of people who have not been killed because of the intervention made possible by military and other security spending. The same goes for cancer spending. I imagine your point can still be made using relevant numbers, but again, we don’t spend based on the number of victims, but rather the number of people who benefit from the spending and have not become victims.
Actually, these priorities are about right. Defending the citizens of this country is one of the few things the federal government does anymore that is prescribed by the Constitution. Your analogy is rather flawed because if the 9/11 terrorists could have killed 2,977,000 of us, they would have (who's to say there isn't a plan of this magnitude in the works?).
I don't remember when it became the responsibility of the government to cure cancer. I must have missed that chapter in my US history books.
This insipid Bentley Rayburn, money-is-no-object for Empire essay dovetails nicely with Mitt Romney's recent call for even more Military-Security spending and even more U.S. international belligerence.
Of course without explaining how a country that is flat broke will pay for it.
The USAF was acquiring more new fighters per year in the mid 90s than today with nearly half the budget. The question therefore is not about whether or not to fund a credible deterrence and maintain balance of power, etc, until diplomats can bring about a more pacifist world... but rather how does the nation deploy and maintain maximal muscle while chopping the most fat given substantially reduced defense budgets in the future?
There needs to be a radical doctrinal shift ASAP in the way acquisition, deployments and force structure is designed, planned and acquired - otherwise even a nominal cut in Defense budget will leave capability and readiness in chaos simply snipping here and reducing there. The latter method will leave deterrence and capabilities hollow and just an illusion of credibility. The necessary radical reforms are an urgent national priority.
The USAF was in fact acquiring more new fighters per year in the mid 90s, than it is today with nearly twice the budget inflation adjusted. The question therefore is not about whether or not to fund a credible deterrence and maintain balance of power, etc, until diplomats can bring about a more pacifist world... but rather how does the nation deploy and maintain maximal muscle while chopping the most fat given substantially reduced defense budgets in the future?
There needs to be a radical doctrinal shift ASAP in the way acquisition, deployments and force structure is designed, planned and acquired -- otherwise even a nominal cut in Defense budget will leave capability and readiness in chaos simply snipping here and reducing there.
The latter method will leave deterrence and capabilities hollow and just an illusion of credibility. The necessary radical reforms are an urgent national priority.
I disagree with you. We need to significantly cut spending (and reduce our capabilities).
Will reducing our capabilities make us less safe?
Did cutting our military spending in the 90's make us less safe? Or would have we been attacked regardless on 9-11?
