Opinions

The defense budget: smarter, but still too large

In print | April 9, 2009

On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed a new budget that would dramatically restructure military spending by decreasing programs for large-scale conventional wars and emphasizing counterterrorism technologies. Although the budget is a significant step away from outdated defense paradigms, it would probably maintain current overall spending levels through its new programs and increases in Army and Marine Corps personnel. And while I strongly believe that we need to shrink defense spending in favor of wiser domestic investments, Gates is to be commended for his efforts to cut inefficiencies and Cold War anachronisms out of the budget, and Congress should embrace his proposals.

But first, a little perspective. Defense spending is the behemoth of the discretionary federal budget. Although actual accounting varies, a conservative estimate puts the figure around $527 billion. To rattle off a few well-worn but telling figures: the U.S. is responsible for almost half of the world’s military expenditures; the next biggest NATO spender is Britain at $60 billion; for context, the development of our F-22 fighter jet was $65 billion alone.

These figures alone, however, do not paint a full portrait of our swollen, misguided spending. One must also consider that the wars we face are not the type that involves dogfighting jet aircraft and missile-to-missile deflection systems. In Iraq, six weeks of “shock and awe” wrought by tanks, carriers, missiles, aircraft and mechanized infantry quickly gave way to six years and counting of foot patrols through bazaars and Humvee rides around Baghdad.

Gates recognized these trends at the hearing on Monday, but his budget only responds in part to these recognitions. He plans to finish purchasing F-22s in a few years, but still plans to buy thousands of Joint Strike Fighters, a model still under development.

The reality is that supersonic jets and high-tech bombs have largely exacerbated already high levels of anti-American sentiment and swelled the ranks of insurgent groups. “Smart” bombs have been all too often stupefied by malfunction or dubious “intelligence.”

On the other hand, the roundly praised “surge” strategy that has been credited with staving off total failure in Iraq was almost archaic in nature. Caesar could have devised it to quell an unruly Gallic village. If U.S. and British forces ever prevail in Iraq, it will be thanks to such low-tech (and relatively low-cost) initiatives like special training for troops to build partnerships with Baghdad community leaders and the uninspiring but effective strategy of pacifying troublemakers by putting them on the government payroll.

In other words, we could slash all sorts of programs in the defense budget and our military campaigns would not suffer, nor would our troops lack firepower or logistical support. We would still be able to “project influence” around the globe. New weapons technologies would still be developed, but at a slower pace.

And perhaps we would have to make do without certain pieces of equipment designed to fulfill extremely narrow combat roles, such as a type of small tank that can fit two-to-a-plane and be flown anywhere in the world. Gates actually downsized the Army’s sensor-networked “Future Combat Systems” program, which judging by an artist’s rendering means that we would be granted a brief reprieve from “Attack of the Clones.”

For many Americans our military spending is linked to our preeminence as a global power; it is the rock that props up our eagle-perch. In their eyes any reduction or restructuring of the defense budget would spell the end of the American Era. This is a simplistic understanding of American power, and it is somewhat akin to the spending spiral that some say precipitated the Soviet Union’s demise.

If these people are right about anything then they only sense what lots of people already know, which is that the U.S. certainly is not as powerful as it once was. So let’s not chase the ghosts of past glory.

And of course, the most serious obstacle to a reduced or restructured defense budget is our entrenched military-industrial complex. This hurdle has only grown as a result of our economic woes. Beyond all of the pressure from lobbyists and campaign contributions from corporations, each defense contract translates into a certain number of jobs, and it is not unusual for a single program to employ workers in forty or so states to ensure Congressional support.

All told, it will take a truly Herculean effort on the part of the Obama administration to convince Congress that the military’s need to remake itself is more important that a handful of manufacturing contracts.

In this respect, an overall decrease in defense spending could actually help ease Gates’ budget through Congress, as money freed up from defense could be used for infrastructure, education and other stimulus projects. Hopefully, defense budgets will take that tack in the future.

Will is a first-year. You can reach him at wglovin1@swarthmore.edu.