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Was Ike right about the "military-industrial complex"?
Remember notorious pacifist...I mean, five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous warnings about a "military-industrial complex"? Turns out Ike was pretty darn prescient.
Here's why. If you'd just lost your job, or if you’d invested your life savings with Bernie Madoff, you'd be cutting out extravagances and focusing on necessities. If you had to spend money for something important (like food, college tuition, or an essential medical procedure) you might borrow the money or dip into your savings. But if you were smart, you'd cut way back on the things you didn't absolutely, positively need.
As the United States tries to dig itself out of its current economic hole, it is going to have to spend some serious money on a fiscal stimulus package, on Wall Street bailouts, and (probably) on health care and education. We'll do this by going even deeper into debt, but big deficits are a long-term drag on the U.S. economy. So if our leaders were as smart as you are, they would be looking for places where they could save some bucks.
This brings me to the defense budget. Right now, the United States spends more on national defense than almost all of the rest of the world combined. We do this even though we have no enemies on our borders, thousands of nuclear weapons to deter a direct attack, and an array of wealthy and powerful allies. We do have some overseas interest and we do face some real enemies -- like al Qaeda -- but most of our vital interests are fairly easy to protect and our most fervent adversaries are a rag-tag band of criminals who don't pose a genuine threat to our way of life.
So you'd think that this would be the ideal time to rethink our global military strategy and look for some savings in the defense area. I'm not talking radical disarmament, but I don't mean just canceling gold-plated programs like the F-22 or abandoning the chimaera of national missile defense. If America has to tighten its belt, shouldn't that include DOD?
Here's why it won't happen any time soon. As Cindy Williams, former director of the National Security division of the Congressional Budget Office and now a senior research scientist at MIT, points out in an as-yet unpublished paper for the Tobin Project, DOD is insulated from serious cuts by an array of impressive political advantages. First, its budget is more than 50 percent of all federal discretionary spending, and its sheer size gives it a lot of bureaucratic clout. Second, the Pentagon has a large domestic constituency: there are 1.4 million men and women in uniform, 850,000 paid members of the National Guard and Reserve, and 650,000 civilian employees. Forget GM, Ford and Chrysler: the Department of Defense is the largest single employer in the whole country. Now add the companies that provide goods and services for the military. Their employees amount to about 5.2 million jobs, which is a pretty impressive domestic constituency. And don’t forget those 25 million veterans, who are hardly shrinking violets when defense spending is concerned. Finally, a well-financed group of Beltway bandits and Washington think tanks stand ready to question the patriotism of any politician (and especially any Democrat) who tries to put the Pentagon on a diet.
So don't expect the military to take a serious budget hit anytime soon.
President-elect Obama claims he wants to shift some serious money from DOD into other areas of international affairs (such as the State Department and the foreign aid program). Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State-designee Hillary Clinton are said to be on board with this idea. I'll bet they try, but I'll bet the actual sums involved turn out to be peanuts.
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“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Harvard University.
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Of course, it's more complex than that
The challenge isn't that the defense budget is in danger of shrinking. You're right, at the worst case, it will remain stable and only grow at the rate of inflation. Hopefully, the items within the past defense supplementals will be incorporated into the regular budget, as they should have been starting in 2006.
No, the real challenge will be that the four Services all need much more money for resetting their forces, recruiting more people, and continuing massive modernization programs. They all want the budget to continue growing to meet all their requirements, and that's not possible. And they know that, but in this town, you ask for the moon, and accept half the funds you initially asked for.
Hopefully, if William Lynn is confirmed as DepSecDef, we might - might, only - see some semblance of accountability come into play with regards to the proper balance of funds between the Services (Navy and Air Force continuously getting more than the Army) and a significant shrinkage of major defense acquisition programs. There will be plenty of controversial in-fighting with DOD just to retain the status quo - no one's worried about any real cuts. As you say, that would be "unpatriotic."
One thing to keep in mind is
One thing to keep in mind is that as a percentage of budget, the military isn't actually that high in terms of the average; about 4-5% of the Federal budget goes to the military, compared to about 10% in Ike's time and compared to a world average of around 3-4%.
You mention that we have "worldwide interests", but I don't think you really appreciate the significance and cost of those interests, Stephen. In East Asia, the US's role in providing protection to areas like Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea arguably work to prevent a real arms race from occurring in that area so that said countries can deal with security threats from China. The US Navy ensures that we can not only deploy our own troops worldwide to various areas (including peacekeeping areas), but other countries as well; the US flew back much of the Georgian military stationed in Iraq to Georgia when the August War broke out. We keep the sea-lanes open, and more generally provide a bunch of services that other countries (particularly Europe, which has very low percentages of military funding on average, about 1 percent of the budget) would have to spend much more on if the US wasn't doing them.
You criticize the F-22, for example, but I don't think you really understand why it costs so much or why it is necessary. The F-22 is basically the fifth-generation air superiority fighter, and is considerably better than its predecessor, the F-16; trials frequently have two F-22s beating 8 or 9 F-16s, if not more.
Moreover, the F-16 has two major problems. The first is that the planes are from the 1980s, and they're started to show problems. Very little of the original planes are left from multiple retro-fits, which leaves open the risk that they'll just start falling out of the sky (same with the F-18s, one of which just did exactly that not long ago). The second is that strategic competitors, like Russia, are producing planes that can go toe-to-toe with the F-16, like the latest Sukhoi fighters. This wouldn't be a problem, except that Russia also tends to sell those planes to countries that can be problems for the US. If we're stuck with F-16s the next time a major air issue breaks out (and it will happen), it's a guarantee that more U.S. pilots will die.
The reason for the F-22's cost? A lot of it has to do with the fact that Congress would say, "Why do we need 700 F-22s when we could save money by only building 600?", and would cut the order. This would then require the manufacturers to re-tool the assembly lines for the smaller order, and that takes both time and money. Not to mention idiocies like the F-35, which is probably going to cost just as much per-unit as the F-22 when it is finally produced, and will be an inferior fighter. As it is, the number of F-22s being produced is so low that the parts manufacturers have said that it won't be cost-effective for them to keep the facilities needed to make replacement parts, which means the planes will be worthless after a few years in service when repair times come around if this keeps up.
As it is, Jason's right - the services are going to have to cut back, and they know it. Of course, if they simply received a block grant of money and were told "Here's your money - do as you will with it" instead of having to have everything go through the Pork Barrel Machine in Congress (where they can make stupid cuts like the one above, which waste time and money), then the above would be easier.
One last thing I ought to note - R & D and Procurement (meaning the making and development of these types of projects plus their production) aren't the highest expenses in the military, by far. The largest expenses are in Personnel (AKA having lots of troops) and Operations (deploying said troops). If you really wanted to save a lot of money, you'd shrink the active-duty Army in size, not take away its firepower.
Brett, I believe you made a
Brett, I believe you made a typo. You said the military spends 4-5% of the federal budget. I believe what you meant to say was 4-5% of GDP. A big difference!
You point out that we need the F-22 so we can win major air issues for the next few years. But we can't afford it. What other choices are there? We could perhaps try to avoid major air issues, but nobody knows where that would lead. If the Sukhois are the planes we have to beat, maybe we should look into buying Sukhois. F16s are failing, F22s are out of our budget. If we can get a decent price for Sukhois they sound like the way to go.
The big problem is that military spending is almost completely waste from the point of view of growing the economy. An extra 1% of GDP to put into productive investment would make a great big difference in how fast GDP grows. 2% would be even better. But we spend 4 cents on every dollar on our military, which does nothing whatsoever to helping GDP grow. Every bomb we build takes resources that could go to something productive but instead are shipped away and blown up. It's worse than that -- the people we pay to build military waste must be taken care of. They suck more resources out of the economy, to compensate them for the time and money and resources they used up creating military waste. Our military is the main drain on our economy.
(Of course, I talk like it's all wasted just because the resources are sucked out of the economy, never to return. But the other side is that when you need defense and don't have it, the riches you created instead aren't something you get to keep....)
So here's an idea that could actually increase the military budget. It goes like this: Require the military to accept anybody who wants to volunteer, no matter what their qualifications. And give the military the entire Welfare budget, and the entire unemployment budget, and the entire Medicaid budget, etc. Anybody who can't take care of himself can join the Army and the Army will take care of him. The Army will also use him any way they figure he's useful. I say the Army can feed, clothe, house, and doctor poor people considerably cheaper than Welfare, Medicaid, etc can. The difference is available to the Army for defense. Also they get whatever labor they can from their soldiers. After you serve your term if you think you can make it on your own now, go try. If you can't then you can join up again.
I'm not sure I like what this would do to US society. But it looks like it would work, it would handle a whole collection of problems. The new problems might be worse but we know the old problems are bad.
Brett, I believe you made a
The point more or less stands, even though Stephen tries to pull a bit of a fast one and qualifies the cost in terms of "discretionary" spending. Military spending DOES represent a high percentage of discretionary spending, but not that much when you measure it up against the cost of the entitlement programs.
Hardly. Ignoring "sunk costs" (that's economic slang for "money you've already spent and can't get back, so it doesn't count"), the total cost of the current build order is $34 billion for 183 F-22s. Not to mention that the unit cost will drop the more you order - as I said earlier, the reason why it costs so much already is because Congress kept cutting the order quantity, which required re-tooling of the build line and raised the unit cost.
That's well within our budget, equal to about, what, five months in Iraq? And unlike operations costs in Iraq, these planes will keep us ahead of the game for the next twenty years, much like how the F-16s kept us up there when they were ordered back in the 1980s.
As for your solution - I'd rather stick with a professional army.
There's no particular reason
There's no particular reason to think the current F22 build order won't have great big cost overruns, particularly when we cut the quantity again.
You talk like you think we can easily afford 5 months in iraq, so we can afford an extra charge equal to 5 months in iraq just as easily. I doubt this.
And for no reason at all you have the fantasy that we will be using these planes for 20 years. But there's strong reason to think they will be grounded far sooner than 20 years.
The plane normally carries 18,000 pounds of fuel, with up to 16,000 pounds additional in four external fuel tanks.
So a little arithmetic -- 183 planes each performing one (1) two-hour 18,000 pound mission, = 3,294,000 pounds of fuel.
It's possible that for the next 20 years we'll be able to deliver many thousands of tons of aviation fuel to where it's needed for those two-hour missions. But no way in hell can that be cost-effective for the next 20 years.
The future of military aviation is cheap slow drones. Keep the development costs low and the unit costs less than 0.1% of your expensive planes. Put ten thousand of them low over an area and your F22s can fly over them at 60,000 feet as many times as they like without getting air superiority. Intense effort into maintenance, intense effort into logistics, and the result is you've got the best air superiority fighter in the world -- maybe the only dinosaur of an air superiority fighter left in the world.
Or maybe it will be high-performance drones. The F22's performance has strict limits because it has to carry a live pilot. You think it can stay on top for 20 years with that limitation?
The problem isn't really the F22. The problem is we have settled into a 20-year development cycle OODA loop. Anybody who can get inside that loop can take us.
And of course you'd rather stick with an all-professional army. The problem is there's little reason to think we can afford one, and little reason to think we need one enough to justify draining our economy for it -- except that there are lots of votes available for that self-destructive path. My alternative would at least keep the funding up -- even increase it.
There's no particular reason
You just argued my point, which is that we should NOT cut the order again (I think we ought to increase the quantity).
Investing in the next-generation of planes in a one-time expense is certainly better than burning through $34 billion just as one small part of a greater enterprise with dubious political and economic benefits to the United States.
You need to actually provide some context to these statements, otherwise talking about how the fuel is too expensive to delivery is more or less pointless. Why, for example, would it be more onerous that delivering fuel to the current fleet of F-16s, F-15s, and so forth? It's not as if the U.S. is lacking for petrol (and if we ever are, the military is going to get the first bite out of any scarce supply), nor for means of delivering fuel and protecting the fuel carriers.
You talk as if none of those drones will require heavy maintenance as well as support crews to actually fly them (not to mention the whole issue of actually managing a swarm of them like you argue for). Of course, there's also the fact that "cheap", slow drones can be shot down by missiles, which are advancing faster than the counter-measures for them.
Unless you personally have developed either artificial intelligence or something close enough to it, then why gut a current program like this one for an undiscovered possibility of having good, autonomous unmanned fighters?
As it is, the current drones all have issues related to piloting, costs related to development and maintenance, and, of course, the fact that the communication signals between the drones and their operators can either be jammed or disrupted. Cut off the signal to a high-performance drone, and it becomes scrap metal attached to a jet engine. Expensive scrap metal, too - the total cost for an MQ-1 Predator drone, including the system required to operate it from afar, is $30.5 million a unit.
Only if they have one or all of the below
A)Enough forces to overwhelm the U.S.'s stockpiles before they can be replenished - which is actually possible if you gut military funding;
B)A significantly faster process of Research and Development as well as design, enough to beat the US's speed in upgrading its forces;
C)A significantly faster process of production and procurement. Meaning, basically, that they have more access to the supplies and tools necessary to make the latest weapons.
D)Access to someone who does have all of the above, and is willing to sell the technology.
The US has a major advantage in all of the above, and since much of it depends of technology and production capabilities, it's not something that could just happen overnight.
It's probably more affordable than your idea of turning the Army into a massive jobs program. One of the reasons why the "conscription" model for most militaries seriously considering upgrades is dying off is because fighting and modern weaponry has gotten much more sophisticated, requiring more in-depth training and morale. That's hard to do with a disgruntled conscript who's only in the force because it's either fight or starve.
Next Generation
Investing in the next-generation of planes in a one-time expense is certainly better than burning through $34 billion just as one small part of a greater enterprise with dubious political and economic benefits to the United States.
I tend to agree. The problem is that we can't afford either one, and we will probably get little value from either one. But I tend to agree that between two bad alternatives yours is better.
Why, for example, would it be more onerous that delivering fuel to the current fleet of F-16s, F-15s, and so forth?
It would not. Those would have their missions cut way back too, of course.
It's not as if the U.S. is lacking for petrol (and if we ever are, the military is going to get the first bite out of any scarce supply), nor for means of delivering fuel and protecting the fuel carriers.
Sure, but you're looking 20 years ahead. Do you seriously think we can continue on this path for another ten years, much less twenty?
Of course, there's also the fact that "cheap", slow drones can be shot down by missiles, which are advancing faster than the counter-measures for them.
When the missile costs more than the drone, that's a loser. Likely the best tool to shoot down a cheap drone will be another cheap drone.
Unless you personally have developed either artificial intelligence or something close enough to it, then why gut a current program like this one for an undiscovered possibility of having good, autonomous unmanned fighters?
Because we can't afford it, and there's no reason to think it will be useful. Note that I'm not predicting we will get a better alternative. I'm predicting that this one will turn out bad enough we'll wish we hadn't done it. The chance that somebody else will develop a cost-effective alternative that makes this one irrelevant is too high.
Expensive scrap metal, too - the total cost for an MQ-1 Predator drone, including the system required to operate it from afar, is $30.5 million a unit.
I'm talking about drones a lot cheaper than that.
The problem isn't really the F22. The problem is we have settled into a 20-year development cycle OODA loop. Anybody who can get inside that loop can take us.
Only if they have one or all of the below
B)A significantly faster process of Research and Development as well as design, enough to beat the US's speed in upgrading its forces;
That's what I'm hypothesizing. We are very very slow, and we lose if an enemy gets inside our OODA loop.
A)Enough forces to overwhelm the U.S.'s stockpiles before they can be replenished - which is actually possible if you gut military funding;
Yes. But the continental USA ought to do fine unless somebody finds a new way to project force. We project force by burning a whole lot of oil, and everybody in the world except us knows they can't afford it. We have a worldwide monopoly in force projection long distances. We are the only ones who are willing to burn enough oil to put large military forces halfway around the world, and because we are the only ones who do this we are the only ones who have military bases all over the world.
When the oil gets scarce, if we can defend ourselves from mexico we can do just fine at defending the USA. Defending our bases around the world is another issue.
C)A significantly faster process of production and procurement. Meaning, basically, that they have more access to the supplies and tools necessary to make the latest weapons.
That would do it. So who has the better production capability, us or china? Us or india? Luckily, it's not likely to matter much unless we choose to fight india or china, in or near india or china.
The US has a major advantage in all of the above, and since much of it depends of technology and production capabilities, it's not something that could just happen overnight.
The US has an extremely expensive and slow approach to all that. We can't afford it, and it's likely to produce the wrong stuff. Like for example the F22.
....fighting and modern weaponry has gotten much more sophisticated, requiring more in-depth training and morale. That's hard to do with a disgruntled conscript who's only in the force because it's either fight or starve.
Agreed. However, we could perhaps have a three-tier military. Elite units like our current special forces for the top tier. A bunch of logistic backup etc who are not elite, but who can try to become elite if they wish. And a whole lot of losers that the military could try to get some use out of. My claim is that the military could handle this third group cheaper and far more effectively than the civilian police, prison, and welfare systems can. But I could be wrong, maybe the attempt would be an expensive fiasco, maybe our military is no longer good at that kind of thing.
I tend to agree. The problem
See, that's where I disagree with you. I hate to say that it's "only" $34 billion, but really - it is. The whole defense budget is north of $500 billion, much of that on personnel and operations - but we can't spare $34 billion in a one-time expense?
Only if you plan to completely gut America's ability to project force. Unlike you, I don't think we're going to be forced into doing that - even if we retreated to a "defensive" position where our military is based around defending North America first and foremost, we'd still want control of the seas around us, which means aircraft carriers and worldwide supply lines.
Assuming we don't try another bloody nation-building exercise, then sure we can. Think about if we hadn't gone into Iraq - none of this would even be a problem. It will be less of a problem after 2009, when US troops more or less just sit in their bases in Iraq, and after 2011, when they're gone.
Or a high-performance air superiority aircraft. Or shoulder-held rockets, if your drones are slow and low enough.
Again, I disagree there - I think we are perfectly capable of affording it, and it will turn out fine. The F-22 is a tested fighter that fits a traditional role (air superiority), meaning it's a better version of its predecessor. That's more than you can say for that Army abomination, the Future Combat System.
There's a limit to how cheap you can make your drones and actually have them complete their missions. This is like saying that it would be cheaper to simply do infantry mass-waves instead of buying armor and artillery.
Can you name an enemy that's faster? China has been developing quickly, but that's because they are mostly buying and/or stealing technology for their armed forces as well as producing it - and it is still taking them a long time (their navy is relatively weak in terms of numbers and force projection, and their army is still only partially mechanized).
Several strategic competitors, including China, are talking about building aircraft carriers and full-on blue-water navies - territory that the US controls. That means worldwide force projection.
Your point?
Keep in mind that the US has no shortage of oil - only a shortage of oil that is profitable to drill for and produce. If they really needed the petrol, the US government could actually pay for the production of unprofitable-but-necessary oil from the numerous oil shale formations in the continental US, and switch the larger Navy ships over to nuclear power.
Unless we end up having to defend Taiwan, or intervene in a war between Pakistan and India. Either way, the answer is definitely the US - we have a much, much better capability in terms of skilled personnel, machine tools, technology, and production facilities to produce military equipment. Simply having industrial power isn't enough anymore - modern military equipment relies on a whole lot of parts and takes time to tool production lines. It's not like in World War 2, where you could design a tank in one year then produce them in one year.
The whole defense budget is
The whole defense budget is north of $500 billion, much of that on personnel and operations - but we can't spare $34 billion in a one-time expense?
No, we can't. We have to cut something, and everything we might cut has its justification to remain uncut. Our biggest expenses are personnel and we won't cut those very fast in a recession.
Only if you plan to completely gut America's ability to project force. Unlike you, I don't think we're going to be forced into doing that
So we have a difference of opinion. Would you consider making a small bet on that? Maybe $5000 US, or 5000 korean won? Which of those do you think will be worth more in 20 years?
"When the missile costs more than the drone, that's a loser. Likely the best tool to shoot down a cheap drone will be another cheap drone."
Or a high-performance air superiority aircraft. Or shoulder-held rockets, if your drones are slow and low enough.
Your F22 has how many air-to-air missiles? Sixteen, maybe? Plus 30 seconds worth of cannon fire. GIven cheap enough drones, maybe its shock wave will disintegrate them. Shoulder held rockets, maybe, if the rockets are cheap enough. If you can get enough of them to the guys who need them.
The F-22 is a tested fighter that fits a traditional role (air superiority), meaning it's a better version of its predecessor. That's more than you can say for that Army abomination, the Future Combat System.
Agreed about FCS. We might find a way to make that truly useful. In the meantime it's inevitably going to get misused. Note the effect the telegraph had on our civil war. Suddenly Lincoln could get reports almost instantly, and he had to resist the urge to micromanage the war. Everybody wants more information, and it takes awhile to learn how to use it when you get it.
"We are very very slow, and we lose if an enemy gets inside our OODA loop."
Can you name an enemy that's faster? China has been developing quickly, but that's because they are mostly buying and/or stealing technology for their armed forces as well as producing it
We're trying some COTS stuff too. When it works, we get something quicker and cheaper. Is it better to have it perfect and expensive and twenty years late, or good enough in ten years? When stuff changes too fast it's hard to adapt the training, there are disadvantages to new stuff too quick. But my bet is on the quicker OODA loop, up to a point.
"We are the only ones who are willing to burn enough oil to put large military forces halfway around the world"
Your point?
Nobody else is stupid enough to compete with us for this booby prize. The USSR tried for awhile but they went bankrupt long ago. Now it's our turn.
Keep in mind that the US has no shortage of oil - only a shortage of oil that is profitable to drill for and produce. If they really needed the petrol, the US government could actually pay for the production of unprofitable-but-necessary oil from the numerous oil shale formations in the continental US, and switch the larger Navy ships over to nuclear power.
"Unprofitable" in this context means it uses up more resources than it's worth. When you burn four barrels of oil to get five out of the oil shale, using lots of equipment and lots of people, you don't have a great basis for great big oil-hungry foreign adventures. We could switch more ships to nuclear power, true.
"So who has the better production capability, us or china?"
Unless we end up having to defend Taiwan, or intervene in a war between Pakistan and India.
We don't have to do either one. We talk like we might choose to do both, because we can. But as we see that we lack the resources to do it, then it gets more obvious that we don't have to.
...we have a much, much better capability in terms of skilled personnel, machine tools, technology, and production facilities to produce military equipment.
Specialised for that purpose and slow at it.
Simply having industrial power isn't enough anymore - modern military equipment relies on a whole lot of parts and takes time to tool production lines.
At tremendous expense we can send a relatively small force anywhere in the world, with advanced weapons.
With nearby bases in friendly countries, we can send a rather large force over a period of six months to a year, again at tremendous expense.
Our super-expensive advanced weapons and our superb training make our forces far better man-for-man than most others.
This does not get us the victories we want. We did fine against grenada and panama. Both times we managed to quickly win and then quickly set up a puppet government and mostly pull out. Where else has that approach worked recently?
Notice the guys who want to change our military focus from winning wars to managing occupations. It takes more garrison troops to hold a defeated nation than it takes to defeat it, and we feel like we haven't really won if we just mess people up and walk away. But that's what we *want* to do.
Imagine the rules of football were changed so that after each game, the spectators from the losing side had to all get out on the field for a few hours while 80 members of the winning team interacted with them. It wouldn't really enhance the game. But real war is fought for political reasons and not for fun. Unless the joy of winning a war *is* a major political reason in some particular case....
So OK, if we're going to force-project with relatively small numbers of soldiers, we need the very best equipment for them. But nobody else has to have the very best. They can adapt civilian stuff and get lots of it quick. And if they're smart they can do things that change the rules of the game. We saw that a little bit in iraq. Their RPGs meant we had to up-armor our vehicles, and an up-armored humvee gets around 2 mpg, not that much better than a tank.
Of course it doesn't really matter how much fuel our army uses since there's plenty and if there's ever a shortage they'll be first in line. It doesn't matter one little bit, there's no substitute for victory and only bean-counters count the cost. Hey, complain about how much foreign oil the occupation uses? We wouldn't like it if it was still Saddam selling it to us, now would we? No, it's the soldiers' job to win the occupation and it's our job to pay whatever it costs for as long as it takes. Or at least borrow whatever it costs.
Entitlement
When the first justification for the military budget is that it is a relatively small proportion of GDP, Eisenhower's concern has come to full fruition.
We might be forgiven for thinking that the defense budget has become an entitlement rather than a rational response to external forces.
Your latter point regarding the F-16 vs the F-22: "If we're stuck with F-16s the next time a major air issue breaks out (and it will happen), it's a guarantee that more U.S. pilots will die." Emotionally quite convincing, and so difficult to refute.
But we are not talking about an 'air issue.' We're talking about war, a bloody business for all concerned. Justifying spending on the basis of 'force protection' begs one of two questions: 1) what is one pilot's life actually worth? or 2) if the pilot's life is invaluable, what business do we have going to war at all?
The danger to this thinking is that it begins to suggest that we are better off finding and sponsoring allies who are less concerned about paying the blood price.
Unfortunately True
As a service member, I see many places where we need to trim the fat off the budget. The primarily Stability and Support Operations (SASO) and Counterinsurgency (COIN) -oriented force that our nation requires is manpower and training intensive, rather than technology intensive. Items like Missile Defense and the F-22 represent some of the most extravagant excesses, but there are many others as well. Unfortunately, that force that the country requires doesn't generate jobs and income in every congressional district in the country, the Army to fight the Soviets and the Navy ready to take on the Imperial Japanese does.
From my knowledge, the DOD
From my knowledge, the DOD spend lots of money when employing private military contractors (some of these contractors receive passes to secret bases).
I'm still debating about the military budget. The US is in a horrible economic crisis but I believe that the US should really touch this budget. This because the US is fighting wars on different fronts and is facing quite a few threats worldwide. If the US wants to stay ahead of China (or even Russia) then they should think carefully about shrinking their military budget. It's going to be interesting to see how Obama runs the US when he's in control. We'll see if he makes serious changes or slightly modifies what's going on. Hopefully the US will figure it out.
third hyphen
professor walt:
i've often heard the rumor that there was a third hyphen in ike's statement.
is this true.
if so what else did he include.
It was supposedly going to be
It was supposedly going to be "military-industrial-congressional complex" (which actually only makes two hyphens), but due to pressure from his advisers and others he took it out. It cut too close to home apparently.
dissent
1) 1/2 discretionary budget. So what? The world is effectively outsourcing its defense services to the US, and we provide the best deal out there, since we have the industrial and financial base. We are the most efficient, in terms of returns, in the sector. This is Ikenberry, no?
2) It is discretionary spending, but that shouldn't blind us to its necessity. It is a government led industry, as war is by definition a monopoly of the state.
3) Lobbyists. That is normal. Read Arthur Bentley.
4) Ike was right in that a military complex would require permanence, and would become an institution.
5) There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, where do the normative judgments come in?
6) If the Obama team wants more money for state, then they will have to sacrifice America's military role. This shouldn't be done, as guns speak much louder than words, and nothing justifies a sacrifice of our military positions, that comes out of Madison Avenue. As Samuel Huntington remarked, drinking Coca-Cola doesn't make you Western. Neither does watching Dallas.
Some Suggested Cuts
In a little over one month, a new administration will have the opportunity to manage a significant realignment of U.S. defense and national security priorities. To be sure, this process will not occur in a vacuum. Today’s security imperatives and budgetary realities will require the next administration to make hard decisions and difficult trade-offs on competing visions of the military and its role in implementing national security strategy. These trade-offs will have wide-ranging consequences for the size and structure of the force, and what procurement and modernization options are feasible in order to advance overall U.S. national security interests.
This Center for American Progress report lays out some of these trade-offs and gives recommendations for where to make cuts:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/military_priorities.html
The Center for American
The Center for American Progress's ideas are completely idiotic. They basically want to increase the size of the Armed Forces without lowering standards somehow (which is another way of saying that they want to jack up pay and benefits - good for military personnel, but not so great if this is supposedly all about saving money), while almost completely gutting modernization.
That's a nice way of saying that they want to create a "Garrison Army" with lots of troops but no firepower, who are more likely to die on the battlefield due to the trade in military technology worldwide these days. Nevermind that that greatest expenses in the Armed Forces are not research and development, or procurement, but Personnel and Operating Costs.
It's an Army that's basically made to do Nation-Building Exercises - which is funny, because if you asked them to their face, the Fellows there would probably deny that they want to do anything like Iraq again.
Good post
Good post, but it's worth pointing out that these domestic forces are not unique to the defense industry. It is a classic example of concentrated benefits, diffused costs (Yes, we all benefit from defense, but we don't all benefit from a particular piece of defense spending). That we can't even get rid of unpopular farm subsidies leaves little hope we can make a serious dent in an area such a defense, which is much more open to political demagoguery, as you point out.
Expending political capital to wrest funds from DoD just to turn around and waste it on foreign aid, however, does not strike me as a step in the right direction.
There are a few things that
There are a few things that are worth mentioning here:
1) One of the big problems with many military programs is that, due to cozy relations between the government and the suppliers, costs of contracts are often understated to make the pill easier to swallow. No doubt that most decision makers know it before it happens.
2) Another problem is that the contracts are based on bids, and it's quite frequent that, to win the bid, one of the supplier will give a lower than internally and often externally estimated cost, leading to large overruns. But once the hugh sunk costs of setting up the whole thing are already covered, nobody will back out, rightfully so.
3) The F22 will be outdated very soon, as many have mentioned, planes with pilots are a relic of the 20th century, and have limitations due to human beings inside (think air supply, cabin space, ejecting seat) and on top of that could fly faster, maneuver better and so forth without a pilot in them. The F35 is meant to be a cheaper to build plane, but it will still cost a lot. As for our competition, what makes the US military strong are not necessary the best planes, but rather the amazing support behind them in terms of supply lines, air superiority due to carriers and early detection based on AWACS. We could fly F18s and still get those things.
Regardless, there is no way to cutting the spending on military, too many people have too many interests and it is a hugh employer like mentioned above.
Stephen, Another thought.
Stephen,
Another thought. The public outcry of cutting funding while troops are in harms way is another tool the industrial-military complex has at its disposal. Even if the program is merely theoretical, any reduction or cancellation easily spins into "not providing what the troops need in a time of war". I'd argue that the defense lobby groups can easily feed those talking points to any member of congress to come across as pro-military and anti-DOD cut.
On another note, while I agree there are numerous DoD programs worth of a cut or cancellation, there are a large amount of reset/recovery costs getting ready to rear their ugly head. The wear and tear of 7 years of continuous use of tanks, bradleys, helicopters and HMMWVs will require massive overhaul programs to refit this equipment...again feeding the industrial military complex. However, failure to do so leaves a large amount of our conventional equipment (tanks/bradleys) and multi-purpose equipment (utility helicopters and HMMWVS) unavailable to accomplish mission abroad or at home (ie disaster relief).
Great food for thought!
further strains on the budget...
Thanks Stephen, nice thoughts, also good point by" sullygoarmy". I'm just researching introductions to congress and Senate regarding the claim to withdraw/ redeploy troops from Iraq since 2006, and so many introductions calling for a withdrawal are actually answered by introductions calling for no cuts in spending that could put troops in harms way.
The budget allocations from DoD to State, will probably be for purposes of restructuring capabilities from DoD to State, USIP and USAID. In the recent years the DoD worked on the turf of State, especially by taking responsibility of the CPA or taking charge of the PRT's in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gates is just getting rid of those burdens, putting more emphasis on this work on civilian agencies. But this will not necessarily lead to a lesser defense budget, as the new kind of operations, the military emphasized on in FM 3-07 relies on a unity of effort between the civilian agencies and the armed service, which will further attribute to budget needs for reorganization of certain branches of the armed forces. Judging from Susann Rice's appointment to the UN and other strategic placements (Kilcullen and others, I'd say that the Obama administration will probably use this opening in the military to humanitarian intervention and R2P, to better the perception of the US in the world.
This along with the overhaul of the equipment in use, will be a further reason for why the defense budget will most likely not be cut. It simply can't be.
Another thought on that ridiculous discussion of the use of F-22's. I believe kicking off this discussion wasn't intended by Stephen, yet so many began commenting on it. Some thoughts on that:
First even though the US has the 7th Fleet in Okinawa and thousands of soldiers in the region it was unable to deter North Kora from detonating a nuclear weapon. Good job... second, China sent two destroyers plus a frigate to the Guf of Aden, so much for deterring China of a high seas capability...
Coming back to the F-22, even if F22 are superior to any other aircraft, the adversaries of the U.S. with whom the U.S. and NATO will have to deal with, are not going to even have aircraft. "A reliance on fixed wing aircraft is a claim of bankruptcy in a assymetric war". What use will F-16's, F-22's for that matter or a DDG1000 destroyer have in an assymetric war, in which your opponent will use IED's and RPG's?
I take it you belong to that
I take it you belong to that School of Thought that assumes, without proof, that the US will continue to have overwhelmingly military superiority into the foreseable future, and that our only threats will be "failed states" and international terrorism?
Have fun with that. I'm not going to put my money on it, though, because I remember two things. First, we have no idea what type of security threats will realistically pop up in the next century - for all we know, climate change could result in a renewal of inter-nation warfare (not that it ever stopped). Second, conventional military superiority doesn't hurt, particularly since you can train conventional troops to do unconventional missions (look at the Surge in Iraq).
I take it you belong to that...
why is the discussion about COIN still an either/or discussion? I'll give you some facts as an answer, if you don't mind.
Fact 1: The U.S. currently is the single best equipped conventional army.
Fact 2: China is upgrading its Army and seeking hegemony in the region.
Fact 3: Iran is seeking hegemony in the region.
--> These are threats that can only be deterred, or even engaged conventionally, granted.
Fact 4: Iraq went sour and caused a huge load of crap. "Second, conventional military superiority doesn't hurt, particularly since you can train conventional troops to do unconventional missions (look at the Surge in Iraq)." Do you really want to wait 4 years until the right guy with the right strategy comes up? Tell that to those thousands of Iraqis who saw the U.S. as liberator, and later joined the insurgency, b/c they had no means of income or their brother was killed by a raid on their house. If you kill one guy, you'll end up turning a whole extented family against you and maybe into insurgents. Do the math for Iraq and the whole of Middle East for yourself.
Fact 5: There are more and more ungoverned spaces or failed states, where terrorists or also pirates find harbor.
Fact 6: resource shortage further increased by climate change, will cause more and more conflict in the third world, especially Africa... And if nation-nation wars should break out there, they will most likely have the looks of the current conflicts.
Fact 7: Almost any country currently seeking to attack the U.S. will do so on the only level it can! Assymetrically!
--> So do you really want to keep on relying solely on conventional weaponry?? Yes this conventional weaponry is needed to deter China and other states... but you also want to have an Army capable of tackling problems in other areas. That's why the Army published FM 3-07.
So it's not an either/or question... it's a question of what will the most likely conflicts look like in which the U.S. will have to engage in the future. And the answer is, as you said, we don't know...
But because we don't know, we need to think about the most likely scenarios and have the armed forces prepared to fight them in the proper manner, be it conventional or assymetric.
To sum up: 4 years and hundred of thousands of dead Iraqis and 3000 (in 2007) of dead U.S. soldiers, is a pretty lousy manner in which to adapt to a mission now , is it? And you should better be glad this school of thought came around in people like Petraeus, Nagl and others, otherwise the U.S. would be pulling out of Iraq like it did in Vietnam.
And just to quote Petraeus in
And just to quote Petraeus in the current FP interview.
" DP: It’s important to recognize the most important overarching doctrinal concept that our Army, in particular, has adopted—the concept of ‘full spectrum operations.’ This concept holds that all military operations are some mix of offensive, defensive, and stability and support operations. In other words, you’ve always got to be thinking not just about the conventional forms of combat—offensive and defensive operations—but also about the stability and support component. Otherwise, successes in conventional combat may be undermined by unpreparedness for the operations often required in their wake.
The debate about this has been a healthy one, but we have to be wary of arguments that imply we have to choose—or should choose—between either stability-operations-focused or conventional-combat-focused training and forces. It is not only possible to be prepared for some mix; it is necessary. "
I take it you belong to that
I take it you belong to that School of Thought that assumes, without proof, that the US will continue to have overwhelmingly military superiority into the foreseable future, and that our only threats will be "failed states" and international terrorism?
How about this -- if we can build conventional forces as fast as anybody else does, then we can reduce our overpowered conventional forces now, and build them up with more modern equipment at the rate that our foremost threat does, later.
But if we're inevitably slower than our enemies we have to keep a strong force now because otherwise they can ambush us.
First, we have no idea what type of security threats will realistically pop up in the next century
That's an argument to be flexible. Find a way to produce wht we need quickly, because we won't know what we need until soon before we need it.
Second, conventional military superiority doesn't hurt
True as long as you have an unlimited budget and an unlimited population to call on. If your conventional army has an opportunity cost, if there's something else you don't get to do because you're doing that, then it can hurt.