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Defense Chief Urges Big Cuts In Military Spending
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the Pentagon is wasting money it will no longer get, and focused on targets as diverse as the large number of generals and admirals, the layers of bureaucracy in the Pentagon, and the cost of military health care. 'The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, opened a gusher of defense spending that nearly doubled the base budget over the last decade,' Gates says. 'Military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny. The gusher has been turned off, and will stay off for a good period of time.' Gates, a Republican who was carried over as Defense Secretary from the Bush administration, has already canceled or trimmed 30 weapons programs with long-term savings predicted at $330 billion, but is now seeking to convert as much as 3% of spending from 'tail' to 'tooth' — military slang for converting spending from support services to combat forces. While this may not seem like a significant savings in the Pentagon's base budget, cuts of any size are certain to run hard against entrenched constituencies. Gates's critique of top-heavy headquarters overseas was underscored by the location of the speech — the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. President Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, warned the nation of the menacing influence of an emerging 'military-industrial complex' in his farewell address as president in 1960. 'Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals,' said Eisenhower, 'so that security and liberty may prosper together.'"
This will be spun as a Democratic administration not "supporting the troops", despite it being proposed by Gates, a holdover from a Republican administration. Much like how only Nixon could go to China, only a Republican can advocate cutting the defense budget (even if only a mere 2-3%) without being pilloried as near-treason.
Eisenhower said:
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
I wonder why people always ignore that part.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Indeed.
If there really is going to be some "tail-to-tooth" transfer of spending, it'll be a very welcome change.
However, I am a bit peeved at the mention of "military healthcare". Given the atrocious cuts in services for veterans who've been injured in combat, I think that is the one area where the government needs to do more.
After all, if we ask people to lose limbs for us, it's only fair if we at least take care of them, when they come back from the battlefield with life-altering disabilities. It doesn't really matter what wars they were fighting. They are OUR soldiers, and it's our duty as a nation to support them, regardless of whether we support the politics that brought them to the battlefield.
Does this mean major cutbacks on corporate welfare and job security clearances for US Persons?
I'd love to get an engineering job outside of the defense/military industrial complex, maybe this will finally make the other jobs on the market relatively more competitive! And maybe I could get to apply some of the mechanical/aerospace skills I learned in college finally?
Corporate welfare through defense spending has been an awfully good way of keeping the educated middle class too busy doing busywork to try to enact any kind of social change. But maybe mass entertainment has finally caught up with keeping those minds preoccupied with inane things.
"Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, not one, and we could explore space together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace." -Bill Hicks
Living With a Nerd
I remember reading somewhere that Eisenhower was the president to most significantly cut the military budget in the past 60 years.
Anyone else who tried to do it was labeled as "making America weaker" or a giant wuss. But it was much harder to call the man who lead the largest amphibious invasion in history a pussy.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Military spending has been increasing at an unsustainable rate for at least the last 30 years. If it continues to increase at this rate it will surely bankrupt us. Our heavy investment in the military (over other important things such as education) also suggests that our priorities are badly skewed and need to be realigned.
Facts have a liberal bias.
The man is awesome. He cares for America. Basically, another Eisenhower. Obama has a group working on figuring out how to cut the deficit and balance the budget. That group needs to have EVERY head of each dept. tell them how to cut waste for each. Finally, that group needs to push for a balanced budget amendmendment that will block the running of deficits during good times. Right now, the majority of our unneeded debt is from 1982-1990, and from 2002-2007. That accounts for about 8 trillion dollars of a time when we had a decent economy and had ZERO reason to run a deficit.
Personally, If Robert Gates was to run for president (or even replace Biden) , I would vote for him.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you study the events leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the size and rampant spending of their military-industrial complex as it slowly bankrupted them for thirty years comes out on top. Everyone knew it existed, and everyone knew it would suck the nation dry before they could "win" the Cold War against the United States, but it was so entrenched in their economy that the means to measure and control it simply did not exist. It's interesting to see that Eisenhower noticed this disturbing trend fifty years ago. If the Soviet Union was bled dry in thirty years, how much longer can the United States survive the siphoning of hundreds of billions of dollars from their economy? Or is it already too late?
American citizens really must ask themselves what this spending has done for them. Access to foreign oil? Protection from terrorists? For a fraction of the trillions of dollars spent in the past decade on "defense", those issues could have been resolved virtually overnight. Instead, you have made a select group of people very rich and very powerful. Was it worth it?
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial-congress complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
I know it's complex, but if you ignore the political implication aspect you're devaluing the entire notion.
You can't take the sky from me...
Um the military only earning power is body bags of the enemy. Gezz man The military is for protecting our country and our way of life,there not a for profit company. I want our men and women to have every tool available to them,no mater the cost too protect our country and way of life.
The military itself may not be "for profit", but MANY of the companies that supply the military with equipment have ties to various politicians and/or political groups. Iraq/Afghanistan weren't wars for oil, they were wars for profit in general...just like every other war in history.
Much of the technology we are currently using (fighter planes, as an example) serve no purpose over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bombers, sure...but planes designed for air-to-air combat? What, are they fighting the 47th Flying Sandies Brigade? Much of our military spending is still stuck in the Cold War. It needs to be drastically altered.
Living With a Nerd
"t does not even mean the military need become weaker as a result."
So what if it does? The US already has the most powerful military in the world by an order of magnitude. What do we need all of this "power" for, anyway? We haven't had a real threat to the US since WWII.
I don't respond to AC's.
Well, we're doomed then. For the majority of USA "citizens," if it doesn't exist on American Idol, it doesn't exist.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Soildiers, sailors and marines, as well as their families, earn everything they get. I would hardly call it an 'entitlement' program to give benefits to people that we ask to give up their youngest, healthiest years and spend them slogging through mud, risking their lives; or for their families to have to sit back and wait, wondering if their spouse/parent will come home in one piece, if not alive. I'm not saying this because of the "rah-rah-rah" stuff, I'm saying it because there is a world of difference between soldiers earning keep for themselves and their families and, say, welfare. "Back in the day" there might have been something to be said for perhaps a tiered system where those "in the rear with the gear", who were at less risk, didn't get as sweet a deal. But, as we're now in wars where there really aren't front lines and safe zones, where anyone is a potential enemy and you're just one grenade away from death, even at the supply depot, there really isn't a whole lot of difference now.
http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1467
I found a lot of the media coverage to be selective, and the headline on this /. posting to be somewhat misleading
No. Healthcare is considered a right in most of Europe. One of the big pushes has been to provide healthcare for everyone.
The military healthcare system for veterans and their families is an absolute necessity. Soldiers get payed crap, they deal with a job that curtails their constitutional freedoms, a job where they have to deal with the trauma of violence, death, killing and risk being killed/maimed themselves.
You want to cut the military pay roll? Fine. Reduce recruiting, let old soldiers retire. But each and every one of them needs what little help and compensation they do get and deserves more.
Because it really makes sense to have a parallel health care system only for soldiers?
VA hospitals are a pretty good system, but they should really be for everyone, not just ex soldiers. Public health care is good for everyone, not just people who were in wars.
-josh
I put it to you that you are already bankrupt from overspending for the past 30 years. If the USA wasn't a nation that can just keep printing more money when required, or spend itself trillions into the hole, it would have been bankrupt years ago.
The Military/Industrial Complex that Eisenhower was warning against, got into power, and its been reaping massive fortunes for its Corporate Owners for that entire time. Look at Haliburton most recently.
Blackwater - when did the US citizenry decide it was actually okay for the country to hire mercenaries, and in fact let them equip themselves with a private airforce etc? Billions lost there.
Its long since past time for these cuts to be made - and in fact if the system were forced to trim itself down to ensure the "Tooth" part of the equation is still effective it would probably be very effective still - but the US budget is firmly in the grasp of the corporations that are making billions in profits for their owners off of defense spending, and the Military who naturally want all the high-tech tools and manpower they can get so they can be as effective as possible. You are not going to break that grip, ever. The politicians who are in office, BELONG to those companies, and if they want to keep their jobs, must keep supporting them I am afraid.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
if we don't provide what they want AARP is going to come wielding pitchforks on their golf carts?
Pretty much. Social programs keep human misery below the "bloody uprising" threshold, they are as important to social stability as police and fire services.
You can't take the sky from me...
While I agree that we're spending too much on some weapons systems... there's absolutely no excuse to pay 7 billion dollars for a DDG-1000 destroyer...Gates is fiercely protective of the biggest, most expensive military boondoggle of all time, the Joint Strike Fighter. He will absolutely tolerate no talk of canceling it.
It was supposed to be the "cheap" supplement to the F-22, much the same way the F-16 was the cheap supplement to the F-15. But now the F-35 costs as much, or possibly even more than the F-22 (CBO estimate: $122 million a copy and climbing), while being a substantially less capable airplane. And this has happened under Gates' watch.
And yet, he balks at buying more Super Hornets for the Navy instead, at what is a bargain price in the fighter world... $45 million apiece. There's no logic here.
I'm as big a hawk as you'll find, but I think the primary problem is with two parties here... defense contractors, and Congress. Congress sees defense as a jobs program, and defense contractors are ripping off the taxpayer. I've come to the reluctant conclusion perhaps we should abandon private suppliers for the military, and go back to in-house supply solutions. For instance, the Navy used to build their own ships in their own shipyards. It was seen as a way to not be too reliant on private yards, and to keep them honest. God knows we need that again. I'm a big capitalist, and all for competition in truly free, private markets. But defense contracting isn't really a free market. You're serving one customer... the government. Maybe it's time to open up our own shipyards again, and revive the old Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia. Maybe that's the only way to put firms like Lockheed on notice that the gravy train is over.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Military spending has been increasing at an unsustainable rate for at least the last 30 years.
No, the cost of individual weapons systems has been rising at an unsustainable rate. Military spending is a fraction of what it was during it's peacetime highs, when it dominated federal spending in the 50's and 60's. Bush the Elder made big cuts to the military budget, and Bill Clinton made even bigger cuts. Even at the height of our military force structure during the Reagan years, the military was a fraction of what it was under Ike, Kennedy, and Johnson.
What we're getting isn't more military spending, but less bang for our military buck, by buying fewer weapons. We're spending about the same, GDP-wise. It's just that individual ships, planes, etc, cost more, so we're buying less of them. We bought 800 F-15's. We replaced them with 187 F-22's. Same buck. Less bang, even though the individual weapons are more capable. There's simply no way one F-22 can replace 4 F-15's in the real world, no matter what Lockheed's marketing department says.
By far the largest and most bloated parts of the federal budget are the entitlements... Social Security, Medicare, etc. They'll bankrupt us long before military spending would. And while you can cut military spending, by law, you can't cut SS and Medicare, only their rates of growth.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
In a straight up fight(no nukes) the USA would lose to china definitely
Very doubtful. For starters, in a China-U.S. fight, it would definitely all happen on Chinese territory, simply because China doesn't have any means to project its force as far as U.S. Technologically, U.S. is superior - best Chinese tech is one generation behind. China has an edge in manpower, but that's about it.
and probably Russia(it's close enough to wonder)
As a Russian whose father is a retired Russian (and before that, Soviet) army major, I can tell you - from his words as well as my observations - that Russian army, in today's conditions, would stand a snowball's chance in hell against U.S., even if the latter would invade Russian soil. Russian army is mostly of conscripts, and they are poorly trained and poorly fed. While there are a few nice shiny toys such as Tu-160 and S-400, they are few and far in between, and the bulk of Russian forces is equipped with weapons dating back to 70s or so, and not significantly upgraded since then. What's worse is that equipment has been poorly maintained, and the count of planes, tanks etc on paper simply doesn't represent the real number of operational units.
The other big deal is logistics, and things are even worse there. E.g. fuel supply would be a major headache for Russia for any prolonged warfare - ironically, given its status as an "oil superpower".
Now, if U.S. would try to occupy and hold Russia like they're doing to Iraq, then it would get messy for them real quick due to guerrilla warfare, of which Russia has ample past experience to draw from, and fitting conditions (e.g. huge swathes of forested terrain; low-quality roads further degraded by seasonal weather). But that's a very different story, which doesn't have much to do with army strength as such.