Frank: Cut Military Spending by 25%
I agree with this, by Democrat Congressman Barney Frank, though not for the same reasons:
Current plans call for us not only to spend hundreds of billions more in Iraq but to continue to spend even more over the next few years producing new weapons that might have been useful against the Soviet Union. Many of these weapons are technological marvels, but they have a central flaw: no conceivable enemy. It ought to be a requirement in spending all this money for a weapon that there be some need for it. In some cases we are developing weapons–in part because of nothing more than momentum–that lack not only a current military need but even a plausible use in any foreseeable future…If, beginning one year from now, we were to cut military spending by 25 percent from its projected levels, we would still be immeasurably stronger than any combination of nations with whom we might be engaged.
Implicitly, some advocates of continued largesse for the Pentagon concede that the case cannot be made fully in terms of our need to be safe from physical attack. Ironically–even hypocritically, since many of those who make the case are in other contexts anti-government spending conservatives–they argue for a kind of weaponized Keynesianism that says military spending is important because it provides jobs and boosts the economy. Spending on military hardware does produce some jobs, but it is one of the most inefficient ways to deploy public funds to stimulate the economy.
Now Frank and his liberal colleagues would have us cut defense to spend on social programs, which morally might appear logical but doesn’t mean much if not followed by overall cuts in federal spending. Spending got us in this mess but certainly won’t get us out.
Specifically on defense, it is increasingly obvious that any manner of hikes won’t improve our situation much concerning drastically aging equipment and shrinking force levels. Cuts, though, might help if they are handled properly. The Pentagon could continue its obsession with “exquisite weapons” as they did in the 1970s even though most of the wars we fight are of the low tech variety. If this happens we will see a return of a Hollow Force, far worse than we suffered in the Age of Détente, when aircraft lacked spare parts, and warships could not sail due to undermanning.
The military should first get over its obsession with high-tech, over-priced platforms in the form of planes, tanks, and warships, which are larger, costlier, and can only be bought in rapidly shrinking numbers. If cheaper versions are then found, we could concentrate our stretched defense budget on essential weapons like ammo plus support vehicles, supply ships, cargo planes, and especially the troops which in wartime we never seem to have enough of, but wished we did.
More-David Axe provided us with details:
President Barack Obama will unveil his 2010 budget on Thursday, and the military expects big cuts to their spending plans. How big? The Navy was hoping for as much as $26 billion a year to build ships, and will probably get only $14 billion. The Air Force is desperate for 60 more F-22 fighters at a cost of nearly $10 billion, and the only way they’ll get them is with commiserate commensurate cuts to other programs. The Army is bracing itself for a major slash to its pet project, the $160-billion Future Combat Systems family of technologies.
Axe, Winslow Wheeler, and yours truly insists that more money is actually making our defense worse, not better. As a non-military example, just look at the American economy, as vasts sums are poured in since last year with little to show for the taxpayer’s pain.
