re: "Cut The Defense Budget..And Get Others To Do More"

Christopher A. Preble at Big Peace questioned some basic strategic assumptions.

Money quote(s):

"The debt crisis is likely to force a reckoning between these two diametrically opposed positions. How it is resolved remains an open question.

Cutting military spending without changing our foreign policies will put additional burdens on a force strained by a decade of war. Sticking with the status quo will translate into heavier burdens on U.S. taxpayers. If the powers-that-be inside the Beltway decide that we should continue to discourage wealthy allies from defending themselves, then they should explain that to the American people.

So far, they have been unwilling to do that. Politicians claim that U.S. security requires us to act as the linchpin of the international order, that U.S. global economic interests require the U.S. military to be deployed to the four corners of the globe. Some believe that Americans are obligated to spread the blessings of liberty to others denied basic human rights.

These are ambitious goals. Achieving them costs a lot of money. The average American spends two and a half times more than the British or the French on national security, five times more than Germans, and seven and a half times as much as the average Japanese." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

CAA happens to agree heartily with the bold portion of the passage quoted above.

America is not only a continental power, it is also a maritime power whose prosperity depends greatly upon open sealanes and international trade.

"(M)many Americans ask why they should accept cuts in domestic spending, and be saddled with more military spending, so that our allies can continue to spend on their domestic priorities, and, in many cases, cut defense spending."

Some of our allies are rather grudging about our overseas basing, other less so; except, of course, when they need their Libyan sources of petroleum and natural gas secured for them.

"(M)most Americans are fed up with building other people’s countries and fighting other people’s wars. Americans want security, but they doubt that we have to pay for everyone else’s to achieve our own.

Those who simply assume that others would not do more to defend themselves and their interests often ignore the extent to which U.S. actions have discouraged them from doing so. Just as some welfare recipients are often disinclined to look for work, foreign countries on the generous American security dole do not see a need to obtain military power. Our great power, and our willingness to use it, even when our own interests are not at stake, has allowed others to ignore possible threats, always confident that the United States will be there to rescue them."

CAA harbors grave doubts about our more outlandish ambitions with regards to some of our current nation-building assumptions. What is, for instance, the end state desired for all our development aid in Afghanistan? Do we expect Switzerland to come out of all this?

Similarly, CAA has noted with approval certain writers who've inserted the "free-rider" issue into their works of popular fiction.

"The National Security Strategy, published in May 2010, declares “There should be no doubt: the United States of America will continue to underwrite global security.” Taking their cue, U.S. allies have proved understandably disinterested in military spending.

If we are serious about sharing the burdens of global security with other countries, we must change course. Washington should be more reticent to send our troops into harm’s way when our own vital interests are not at stake. And we should shape our military to reflect the fact that we expect to be less involved militarily over the next two decades than we have been in the last two. A leaner, more focused U.S. military can no longer be in the business of defending other countries that can and should defend themselves." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

The U.S. should not be sending our troops into harm's way unless our own vital interests are at stake.

Clearly and realistically identifying those vital interests is what a "National Security Strategy" is supposed to be doing. Instead we get open-ended twaddle like:

"There should be no doubt: the United States of America will continue to underwrite global security."

10/4

re: "National Security Part 3: The Role Of Economics"

The Curmudgeon Emeritus at Eternity Road reviewed the economic basis for military strength.

Money quote(s):

"The last thing any commander wants to do is take his men into an unwinnable war, especially a war unwinnable by reason of inadequate material resources"

Unfortunately, wars aren't always fought by two sides which chose to go to war against each other. It only takes on side to start a war. The enemy gets a vote.

"If a commander dislikes to go to war inadequately provisioned, a national command authority -- in the case of the United States, the president -- should dislike to send him there. Yet it's in the nature of nation-states that, as John Jay said most memorably, they'll go to war whenever there's a good chance of profiting thereby."

This pre-supposes that a commander-in-chief is sufficiently knowledgable, or sufficiently well-advised, that he (or she) knows the difference. Or cares.

(Yes, I'm still pissed about the whole "the army you have" crack.)

"Economic strength is both the precondition for military readiness and the requirement for military endurance. To be considered well defended, a nation must have both.

Analysts disagree on the extent to which a nation can endure various degrees of economic militarization. In the early years of the RAND Corporation, studies were submitted to the Pentagon that proposed that the United States could divert as much as 50% of its GDP to military expenditures, if that were necessary to meet some contingency. Needless to say, there was a wide spread of opinion on whether that was true, and if so, on how long the nation could remain in being under so large a military burden."

Full mobilization is something that the U.S. has never, not really, experienced. Nothing like what various European states, such as Britain, Russia, or Germany, experienced during World War II.

"(A)nnual military expenditures come to about $700 billion: 5% of GDP. Given that the armed forces are one of the seventeen enumerated powers of Congress, that doesn't seem disproportionate, especially considering the broadening of the military's missions and responsibilities in recent years."

Ah, but what about the penumbras!

"It must be said that we spend as much as we do on our military because our "allies" spend so little on theirs. Not only are we committed to their defense; we are all too frequently called in to handle crises they have disdained to address.

Yet despite all that spending and the large, capable military it supports, we are not secure."

There's no such thing as being completley secure, at least this side of the Pearly Gates. The writer discusses some of the ways in which he believes Americans perceive themselves to be insecure, which are worth reading, particularly with regards to the problems causing, and resulting from, illegal immigration.

"(N)ational security is affected by our willingness and ability to maintain mobilization bases: facilities from which we could rapidly develop new or previously rejected military capabilities, or greatly expand the ones we have.

Mobilization bases are important because few major wars begin as "bolts from the blue." There are normally clear indications that conflict is brewing well before the first exchange of fire. That would be so even in our present age, in which the interval between a firm decision and the ballistic nuclear bombardment of any point on the globe is no more than thirty minutes."

A firm decision should be made upon a basis of firm information. More than likely somewhat longer than 30 minutes would be required to assemble, to say nothing of developing, actionable intelligence.

"(S)uch mobilization bases cost money. Worse, it's money spent to remain flexibly poised against notional threats: possibilities that might never materialize. They're the first targets of budget-cutters in a time of austerity. Thus, we cannot be sanguine about building and maintaining such bases without maintaining our economic health and vitality. Even then, it would be necessary to keep unpleasant but yet unrealized possibilities in mind when the budget-cutters come to call."

Good advice for the strategic-minded, but the strategic-minded won't be calling the shots when the knives come out for budget cutting.

"America was not altogether ready for World War II. We had reduced our World War I Army to pre-war levels, and had retreated from most aspects of military production. Fortunately, the psychological response of Americans to the attack on Pearl Harbor left us ready and willing to endure a considerable degree of privation for the sake of the forces and materiel the war would require. Above all, America was rich enough, and free enough, to convert half of its productive sector to the making of weapons of war. It is unclear that we could do that today."

I'm a bit more optimistic about our ability to convert great swaths of our productive sector to war production, but I'm less sanguine about what of our productive sector actually remains within our own borders.

re: "Guns or butter? Saving food stamps at expense of national defense"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") lays out some facts about cutting defense spending.

Money quote(s):

"(T)here’s a whole lot of military spending going on in the world, and we do most of it.

But we’ve known that for decades. What the chart doesn’t tell you, for instance, is how much China’s spending has increased. China’s defense budget for the past few years has seen double digit jumps, with the only year in single digits being 2010 when it only increased the budget by 7.5%. This year, it’s back in double digits at 12.7%. So that wedge you see in this static chart is a rapidly growing wedge. As China’s economy has heated up over the years, so has China’s military spending.

Russia too is increasing its spending on defense. It plans on spending $650 billion on its armed forces over the next 10 years.

France, on the other hand, has been cutting its level of military spending consistently over the years since 1988. But a country that isn’t cutting its spending and which now spends more of its GDP on the military than does France, is Iran.

The point, of course, is that while it is evident that we spend an inordinately larger amount than any other country on defense, we’ve done that because we’ve assumed an international role that others can’t fill or we don’t want them to fill.

And that’s an important point. One reason that we’ve generally seen a peaceful 50 or so years (with most wars being of the regional, not world wide, type) is because we’ve been the country which has shouldered the burden of keeping the peace. Peace through strength.

Obviously there is certainly an argument that can be made that we shouldn’t have to shoulder that burden and it’s time we gave it up. But as soon as you say something like that, you have to ask, “but who will fill the role”?

Certainly not the Third World Debating society known as the UN. They’re inept, corrupt and incompetent. And certainly not NATO – as Libya has proven, they can’t get out of their own way.

So who keeps Russia in its place and stands up to China as that country flexes its newly developed muscle? What about Iran? Or North Korea?

That’s the problem with being about the only country standing of any size after a world war. So we have to ask ourselves, is it in our best interest to back out of our pretty dominant role and cut back drastically in our spending in that area? If we answer yes, we have to ask who we trust to pick up that slack. I know my answer to that – no one. But rest assured that power vacuum will indeed be filled. A dilemma for sure."

One of the fun facts about Russia is that the millions of dollars we've given them in aid to clean up, secure, and demilitarize their older nuclear force freed them to spend their defense budget (remember: money is fungible!) on modernizing and upgrading their new nuclear forces.

"We lead the world in spending but do not have the largest military – not by a long shot. In fact, our entire military is just a bit smaller than the Chinese Army alone. Looking at that, and considering the spending chart, what would it tell you?

It would tell me we spend the majority of our money on technology. It costs money – and a lot of it – to maintain our level of superiority. We spend it on things like 5th generation fighters, state-of-the-art naval vessels, and the like. Programs that are designed not only to give us the technological edge on the battlefield, but also to deter would-be enemies from even trying, given their inability to match our capabilities. It is obviously an intangible – we can’t really measure how much this has saved us from brutal and even more costly wars – but with the budget battles and the fiscal crisis, we’re in a position where we certainly have to clearly state our priorities."

One can place domestic politics and policies, re-election concerns, and "transforming America" at the top of one's "to do" list, but that doesn't make the rest of the world go away.

"Defense spending is 4.7% of GDP and it is approximately 20% of the federal budget."

Just keep that part in mind. It's an important fact. Hmmm. If defense spending is twenty percent of the federal budget, what's the other eighty percent? Foreign aid? Not too likely, considering non-Defense "discretionary" spending is only nineteen percent of the federal budget.

(And according to the pie charts at Blackfive, Medicare & Medicaid are 23%, Social Security is 20%, other "mandatory" spending is 12%, and interest on federal debt is 6%.)

"And we’ve so overspent that we’re spending 6% on interest alone. So 62% of the budget – as designed by those brilliant legislators we’ve elected decade after decade – is untouchable by law. That leaves 39% that these yahoos want to “balance the budget” on. The elephant in the room is ignored to go after the dog. And only part of the dog." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

"(U)ntouchable by law" means untouchable-until-the-law-is-changed. Entitlements and mandatory spending are labels used by politicians to convince the public that transfer-of-wealth payments used to redistribute income are God-given and Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

(And they ain't.)

"Is it a core commitment of the government of the United States to protect and defend the citizens of the country as outlined in the Constitution of the United States, or is it a core commitment to take other people’s money and redistribute it?

Because that’s the choice we’re talking about here. Make the commitment to national security and, within reason, the cost that entails, or (snip) throw it under the bus in favor of redistribution of income instead." (Bold typeface in original text. - CAA.)