We’re Halfway There

On April 7^th, I repeated my Dwight David Eisenhower & the Military Industrial Complex blog, presenting excerpts from two of this distinguished WWII commander’s Presidential speeches back during his term in office in the mid-1950s to early 60s. The summary, basically, is that the United States should be very wary of the defense industry’s expected out-of-control demands, supported by flag officers of the U.S. military, for mega-expensive weapon systems and defense commitments, coining the phrase, “military industrial complex.” He felt the political power of such well-heeled military contractors, and the Congressional support that local communities would exert to get lucrative local contracts, might become unstoppable.

We obviously didn’t listen to this Republican president, as retiring generals and admirals routinely know that if they play the game, they will get lucrative post-career jobs with defense contractors. Though we have not won a military conflict of significant since WWII, our military currently spends more than the next ten largest military budgets combined, equaling not quite half of the world’s total military budget.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives recently passed a defense appropriations bill that actually defied their agreement to maintain budget cuts in support of deficit reduction and increased their allotment to the military well beyond what the administration actually requested, saying that they would instead insist on cuts in other government programs. Though the bill has no chance of becoming law and seems to be little more than pre-election grandstanding in defiance of an administration that many have pledged to do anything to defeat, it also defies both history and reality. We have wound down one tragic conflict in Iraq and are in the process of extracting ourselves from another less-than-stellar effort in Aghanistan – shutting down two wars we fought at the same time. Why in the world would a nation that is ending two wars need to increase its military spending?!

Since we have ignored the words of a great WWII general and a prescient president from decades ago, I thought that it might be relevant to see how one current military expert views this situation. Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright and former Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (pictured above) provides the necessary insight, in a recent interview in the Washington Post (May 21^st).

“The former Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chairman questioned the emphasis on additional manned aircraft, tanks and land vehicles, saying unmanned systems will prove more effective… He also spoke of the ‘fallacy of the two-war scenario’ and argued against an emphasis on cyberdefense rather than cyberoffense. He made his off-the-cuff remarks during a presentation [May 15^th] at the annual Joint Warfighting Conference, hosted by the U.S. Naval Institute and the industry group AFCEA International (Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association).

“Although the House is adding about $4 billion to next year’s spending, Cartwright said that ‘truth be told,’ the Pentagon had been planning $480 billion in reductions over the next 10 years. ‘It was just a question of when and how,’ he said… What concerns him is that $480 billion ‘was about a 10 percent reduction, and historically we’ve run about 20 percent reductions after these [military] conflicts. We’re about halfway there.’” The Post.

While it’s true that he believes it will be difficult to cut the budget much below this 20% level with an all-volunteer military, and retaining good soldiers in an era of deficit-cutting will be difficult, he asked some tough policy questions, challenging the notion that the military has been used as a friendly force supporting the people of the countries where military force is used and instilling local leadership with democratic ideals and the ability to control their own destiny in their own way. “He … spoke of the need to recognize that the United States has become an ‘occupying force.’… “When you go to battle by getting up in the morning in your compound, getting into your armored vehicles, go out and patrol, and return to your compound at night, that is an occupation force,’ he argued… As the country prepares to rebuild its fighting forces, he asked: ‘Are we going to build an occupation force for the last war or [build a force for] the next war we want to prepare for?’” The Post.

Global policeman, high-tech bully spending itself into deficit destruction or a balanced military ready to protect the United States from the real threats without spending ourselves out of existence? Is this really that difficult a question to answer? Particularly since the former strategy – from Vietnam through Iraq and into Afghanistan – has failed to impose the kinds of regimes in any of these nations that we really expected. Vietnam went totally communist, Iraq’s new Shiite majority has made it very clear that their sentiments are now with one of America’s greatest threats (Iran) and Afghanistan threatens to return to Taliban rule, usurping the American imposed Karzai regime, one of the most corrupt in all of history. When will common sense replace political games and raw hubris? Or will we simply be a nation that “spent so much on defense that it engendered complete economic collapse”?

I’m Peter Dekom, and history is littered with governments and dynasties – from Greece to Rome to China to the USSR – that destroyed their own systems by spending too much on their military, fomenting economic collapse.