‘If the Department of Defense can’t figure out a way to defend the United States on a budget of more than half a trillion dollars a year,” said then–secretary of defense Robert M. Gates in 2009, “then our problems are much bigger than anything that can be cured by buying a few more ships and planes.” Gates’s pointed remark reflects a concern broadly shared by small-government conservatives as well as many liberals. For the past 25 years, there has been no army, navy, or air force in the world that comes close to matching its American counterpart in terms of either its prowess on the battlefield or the size of its budget. In fact, the U.S. spent more on defense last year than the next seven top spenders combined. Many are clamoring for a slimmer, cheaper military. But can we defend the country for less? With a national debt of $19 trillion, how should American policymakers be thinking about defense spending?
Significantly, Gates himself soon discarded the notion that $500 billion per year represents the upper bound for a fiscally responsible defense budget. Instead, he decided, spending levels should correspond to the intensity of the threats we face and our strategy for defeating them. Yet Gates reversed himself only after an aggressive campaign to promote efficiency. In 2009–10, he canceled $300 billion of planned purchases and cut another $178 billion from projected spending. Yet in his final budget proposal, submitted in February 2011, Gates asked for $553 billion for fiscal year 2012, rising to $611 billion for 2016 (both figures are in current dollars and exclude supplemental appropriations for the war in Afghanistan). He warned the country “not [to] repeat the mistakes of the past by making drastic and ill-conceived cuts to the overall defense budget” while so many threats remained.
Comments