If your country were under attack – say a major Hawaiian harbor was bombed or buildings in New York were blown to the ground in an unprovoked attack – and you were told to defend your country, no holds barred, and make sure that never happens again, how would you behave? Cost conscious and temperate or “costs-be-damned-but-you’ll-never-do-that-again”? Add to this component that you only get to be a detailed advocate and designer of specific military needs and wants if you have put your own life on the line. One more little fact: you are acutely aware that you have the most advanced and power military on earth, one that attracts folks who want to prove their mettle. It is an honorable and noble profession, one that deters critics by the boatload.
Our “permanent” military lives in a parallel universe of sacrifice with the knowledge that whatever happens in the civilian economy, they need not think too hard about food, clothing, shelter, medical care or the viability of their retirement benefits. Until most recently, the economy was a factor for politicians, an annual budgetary joust that was simply a show for taxpayer-voters, one where the military asks for more than it expects, and then settles for what it always gets.
The “mission mentality” of protecting your country under any and all circumstances does carry the seeds (full bloom?) of a bad habit: feeling that whatever you want to buy, however you want to spend money in the “defense of the homeland,” is morally correct, necessary and should prevail against all else. There is no notion that spending 44% of the world’s entire military budget might actually cause more damage to your country than a direct attack never enters your consciousness. Your mission is clear. If the military budget is excessive, it is up to Washington to cut their “other” spending.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned that additional significant cuts to the Pentagon budget will result in a “doomsday mechanism” that will undermine the ability of the United States to protect itself. Super-Committee member John Kyl (R-KY) has threatened to resign from this budget-reduction group if there are any proposals to cut the military budget further. And on September 22nd, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen said, “If you took a trillion dollars out of defense right now, that would break us.” Well, guys, if we don’t start cutting at least a trillion dollars from that budget, it might just break the whole country… and you wouldn’t actually have a viable country to defend. You gentlemen simply have no clue how much economic damage spending almost half the world’s global governmental arms budget can inflict. $1.2 trillion of deficit alone are attributable to the incursions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that doesn’t even begin to cover the cost of weapons systems we really don’t need but that seem to tempt us into military reactions that drag on for years.
We really need to look at the results of our massive spending activities and see if we got the necessary “bang” for the mega-bucks. The United States has failed to generate global respect and stability through every major and sustained military effort it has fomented since Vietnam. Vietnam fell to a complete communist takeover shortly after our departure, Iraq is now squarely run by pro-Iranian Shiite politicians and bomb blasts have become a way of life, and the Taliban have not has as much power in Afghanistan (laboring under a staggeringly corrupt regime installed by Washington) since the government fell a decade ago. When specialized technology is desired to quell any military target, other countries call on the U.S. to step in, even though we are usually resented as a bully for having done so.
Our humanitarian efforts in Bosnia and recently Libya are shoved into the background of “collateral damage” to innocent civilians, torture in the prisons of Iraq and failures to achieve longer-term military objectives. Very little of this is the fault of the U.S. military, I might add; it stems from the stupid, under-thought, over-reactions of the politicians in Washington who believe that with the most glorious military on earth, we can and should impose our will where we feel justified. Make no mistake, we need a powerful military… but does it really have to be so big that it literally tempts politicians to resort to force when alternatives may be the better route? Exactly how big does our military have to be to serve as a deterrent?
One of the few members of Congress who can speak the truth without coming across as an anti-American retrograde is Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who earned the right to speak through his own courageous military service during Vietnam. Addressing Defense Undersecretary for Acquisitions Ash Carter, who was before the Senate Armed Services Committee as part of his confirmation process to become No. 2 at the Pentagon, deputy defense secretary, on September 13th, McCain called for an “‘end to the department’s systematic tendency to spend the taxpayers’ money in a manner that is far too often disconnected from what the warfighter actually needs and what is in the taxpayers’ best interest’...
“He went on, ‘This will require not just good leadership; it will require a change in the culture at the Defense Department…’ Part of that culture over the last 10 years, McCain said, is that ‘senior Defense management has been inclined to lose sight of affordability as a goal and has just reached for more money as a solution to most problems.’
McCain offered examples to prove his point: a $1.1 billion cost overrun on the first 28 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; a $560 million overrun in building the newest nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford; $10 billion in reprogramming requests to Congress the past two months to reallocate money to cover cost overruns and ‘authority to start dozens of new programs never before presented to Congress.’… He cited the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting report that said at least $30 billion had been wasted on ill-conceived and poorly overseen contracts and grants in Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain also pointed to a study of procurement which said over $3.3 billion ‘had been wasted by the Army every year since 2004’ for developing weapons that eventually were canceled.
“‘A culture that has allowed massive waste of taxpayers’ dollars has become business as usual at the Department of Defense,’ McCain said… He also discussed how solving these problems may face another hurdle: ‘The revolving door of retired flag and general officers, top Pentagon officials and mid-level bureaucrats who had overseen weapons procurement programs before leaving government to join [the] private sector defense industry.’” Washington Post, September 19th. Hey, John, when you’re right, you’re right.
The day of reckoning is upon us. “Former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last May started a Defense Department process which he said would entail a ‘fundamental review of America’s military missions, capabilities, and security role around the world.’” The Post. As much as he and the rest of our military policy-makers may resist and predict dire consequences resulting from budget cuts, the largest solution to long-term spending cuts reside significantly in our Pentagon budget, and not cutting that level of expenditure will impose more political and economic instability than a dozen Twin Tower attacks. We must keep our people safe, but we must also make sure that there is a strong and surviving country that will endure.
I’m Peter Dekom, and the threats to our continued survival are not all military.
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