RSS Feed MenuThe Obama administration has enacted the most significant weapon systems cuts in more than 30 years, and this after enacting an unprecedented $780 billion so-called economic stimulus package in which defense spending was virtually non-existent.
The Obama administration was successful in pushing through its defense cuts because of the weak complicity of the Republican Party. Senators McCain and Graham, Representatives McHugh and McKeon, and most other Republicans have been all too willing to accept a defense austerity budget.
McCain, in fact, helped lead the charge to kill the F-22 fighter jet and was instrumental in passing the mislabeled “Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009.” This mislabeled piece of legislation will help to further stymie and belabor an already overregulated and plodding weapon systems acquisition process.
McHugh talked a better game than McCain, but it was mostly just for show, and Obama knew this. That’s why the President appointed McHugh to be Secretary of the Army.
It is not clear why the U.S. military should be singled out to make “hard choices.” Why when the United States is at war with an international consortium of state-sponsored terrorists who plan and plot the destruction of America’s cities, and when spending on everything else is being significantly, and sometimes dramatically, increased?
But if the U.S military has to make “hard choices,” then it behooves our elected representatives to at least understand what those “hard choices” entail. In truth, though, most politicians don’t want to grapple with the defense budget and with U.S. military requirements in the 21st century.
Instead, the Republicans want to build a military much like we had in the Cold War, where our ground forces are seriously shortchanged in favor of the Air Force and Navy. The Republicans seem to assume that our troops will not be engaging in irregular warfare, counterinsurgency missions and nation-building. The Democrats, meanwhile, seem intent on transforming the military into a social-welfare adjunct of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Both parties are more interested in politics than in the defense budget. However, it is the Republicans who have suffered the most from this bipartisan failure to seriously study and assess U.S. military requirements. The GOP, after all, sang from the Cold War playbook for decades; and by championing the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan, Republicans have been able to project an image of hawkish seriousness.
Not anymore. The GOP has been no less supportive of Obama’s defense cuts than the Democrats. And, rightly or wrongly, Republican stewardship of Iraq and Afghanistan, when George W. Bush was president, has cast serious doubt on the party’s administrative competence and national defense credentials. Thus, thoughtful voters are increasingly willing to give the Democrats a second look and a fair hearing.
In short, the GOP no longer can take the votes of veterans, defense hawks, and national security conservatives for granted. If the Republican Party wants to win these voters back, then they are going to have to earn them. This means they’re gonna have to go back to school on the defense budget, and especially on U.S. military requirements in the 21st century.
genYconservative // Sep 15, 2009 at 9:41 am
Maybe if we spent less money on stimulus packages, we could invest in funding 21st century military requirements and increase the top line of the defense budget. These programs provide high-tech jobs for Americans.
DFL // Sep 15, 2009 at 10:04 am
I’m glad there is one item on the Obama Agenda that I can approve. It is 18 years since the dissolution of the USSR. It is about time we cut the defense budget massively. The USA is undergoing a budgetary and debt explosion that will likely end up bankrupting the country. The last thing we need to do is to add more debt by building a bigger military so that we can operate in nations (ie Iraq, Afghanistan) that most Americans have no understanding of and probably couldn’t find on a map.
balconesfault // Sep 15, 2009 at 12:10 pm
It is not clear why the U.S. military should be singled out for making “hard choices.”
Because the one place where our government spends far far more than any other government on the planet is in military spending?
We spend what the rest of the world combined does on defense. Can you imagine what kind of healthcare system we would have … how well off the American people would be … if our government spent what the rest of the world combined does on healthcare?
Yeah – that would be excessive. Then again, so is our military budget.
Moderate // Sep 15, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Nobody’s talking about slashing military capabilities, Christ. Eliminating waste and defunct fighting programs should be a goal of every right-thinking person.
This should be an issue championed by fiscal conservatives.
balconesfault // Sep 15, 2009 at 2:52 pm
This should be an issue championed by fiscal conservatives.
Well, once upon a time encouraging senior citizens to meet with their physicians and do comprehensive living wills, end-of-life planning, was championed by fiscal conservatives, along with other cost control measures for Medicare. Now any Medicare cost-control is a liberal-Nazi plot to euthanize grandmaw.
Conservative doesn’t mean what it used to.
raygun // Sep 15, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Having suffered through numerous defense contract positions I can assure you if we treated them like real companies instead of vampires at the federal teat, we could cut 30% of the defense budget minimum and still have 500 times more military capability that the rest of the world. Talk about wasting taxpayer money. Eisenhower was prescient.
sinz54 // Sep 16, 2009 at 10:06 am
raygun: Having suffered through numerous defense contract positions I can assure you if we treated them like real companies instead of vampires at the federal teat, we could cut 30% of the defense budget minimum
FYI, procurement of new weapons represents only 20% of the military budget. You could zero out all procurement and still not cut defense by more than 20%. In contrast, two-thirds of the military budget goes for operations and maintenance–to support troops,airmen and sailors in the field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
With your background in defense contract positions, I shouldn’t have to remind you of this.
sinz54 // Sep 16, 2009 at 10:11 am
The United States is the only nation in the world with the combination of military power and will to act as a stabilizer of the world. Without world stability, there can be no international commerce, no globalization, no safety from international terrorism. And if the United States does not act, no one else will either. That’s been proven time and again–Berlin Airlift (1948), Korea (1950), Cuban Missile Crisis (1961), Dominican Republic (1965), Israel-Arab War (1973), KAL shoot-down (1983), Gulf War (1991), Balkans (late 1990s), al-Qaeda (2000s).
That means our military budget MUST be high, because we’re carrying such a huge responsibility and we need the power to make sure we can carry out that responsibility.
Throughout history, ONE superpower had that role–maintaining stability as a force for peace and commerce. Once it was the Roman Empire, whose road-building and military might kept the civilized world safe. Then it was the British Empire, whose navy swept pirates from the high seas and made it possible for international commerce to bloom. And now that torch has been passed to us.
bleyle23 // Sep 16, 2009 at 11:06 am
“Once it was the Roman Empire, whose road-building and military might kept the civilized world safe. Then it was the British Empire, whose navy swept pirates from the high seas and made it possible for international commerce to bloom. And now that torch has been passed to us.”
The noble empire. Quite a concept. Another way to look at is that military might enabled these empires to subjugate the majority of the world under their rule and exploit resources to which they would have no claim but for the fact that they had the power of violence.
balconesfault // Sep 16, 2009 at 11:19 am
That means our military budget MUST be high, because we’re carrying such a huge responsibility and we need the power to make sure we can carry out that responsibility.
And the rest of the world gets to be “free riders” … and our multi-national corporations like Halliburton take advantage of the security we provide by moving their global headquarters to places where they can avoid paying for any of that defense tab … while supporting politicians who want to eliminate capitol gains taxes so that NONE of their profits end up being taxed.
Nice pathway to the continued ascendency of China.
FosterBoondoggle // Sep 16, 2009 at 11:46 am
sinz54, have you actually studied Roman history? The empire collapsed in part because the Emperors, in order to pay to maintain enormous standing armies (to protect themselves as much as the empire), had to progressively debase the currency. Eventually the central government became too impoverished to maintain the allegiance of and control over its far-flung armies.
Does that currency debasement sound like anything you see going on right now?
Over the next 10 years our military spending will consume something between $6000bn and $7000bn, making the proposed $900bn to be spent on revamping our healthcare system look like a budgetary rounding error.
Jim // Sep 17, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Pull the army out of Iraq. Put them on the Mexican border. Export the illegals. Create good paying jobs for Americans at home.
But, of course, we all know that won’t happen.