Spending equals strength and other old-think fallacies

Posted By David Rothkopf Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - 5:07 PM Share

In Tuesday's Washington Post, the Carnegie Endowment's Robert Kagan had an op-ed in which he argued against defense budget cuts.

Neatly sidestepping the reality that the United States spends an amount on defense equal to the total of that that paid out by every other country in the world added up, Kagan (for whom I have a lot of respect) repeats all the usual arguments that defense spenders typically offer concluding, "this is not the time to start weakening our armed forces."

This buys into the conventional mythology of the defense sector so much that it is a little akin to worrying that not leaving out cookies will result in Santa leaving fewer presents. The fallacy: there is a direct correlation between the amount we spend on defense and our level of security. In a perfect world all such spending would be optimally efficient. It's not. We have a country in which we have four often highly redundant service branches with multiple air forces, navies, ground forces, intelligence agencies. We also have huge overhead and notoriously inefficient procurement processes. After all, if we spent more efficiently, someone might actually conclude that the "permanent war" stance we have adopted since the Second World War (to avoid a post-war recession or return to the depression that ushered in the conflict) was due for a rethink.

For example, isn't it possible that if we spent say, only 80 percent of that spent by every other country in the world added up we might still be secure...if we spent a little more wisely and perhaps through effective diplomacy managed our burden-sharing more effectively?

(By the way, soon we're not going to have a choice so it is time for the self-proclaimed realists to get real, and think about how to stretch those defense dollars further.)

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BRETT

5:36 PM ET

February 4, 2009

Neatly sidestepping the

Neatly sidestepping the reality that the United States spends an amount on defense equal to the total of that that paid out by every other country in the world added up

Can we finally retire this rather trite and ignorant soundbite? Aside from the fact that the US spending is only about 4% of our GDP (as compared to 10% during much of the Cold War), and that other countries (especially China) mask parts of their spending under other areas (China's actual defense spending is probably at least 50% higher than what it is on the official paper), the US has global interests in trade as well as global military commitments (like Taiwan, Europe, South Korea, and so forth). That requires that we maintain a highly developed infrastructure for supplying troops, as well as better weaponry and well-trained troops than our potential adversaries (and they exist).

Defense spending is the end result of this, the view of the military on what they need and can get to fulfill their defense commitments. If you have criticisms, target either the strategy, or the ways of fulfilling those commitments; don't fall into the common trap of targeting the spending, as if military spending is something you can chop 10% or something like that off as you would chop a slice of pork off a pig.

After all, if we spent more efficiently, someone might actually conclude that the "permanent war" stance we have adopted since the Second World War (to avoid a post-war recession or return to the depression that ushered in the conflict) was due for a rethink.

US strategy is based around the "Flexible Response" doctrine, which is supposed to allow us different levels of force for different levels of threat, and allows us to potentially fight two adversaries at once in order to discourage opportunism by a potential opponent when the US is involved in a conflict. It also makes possible all that jazz about fighting wars "humanely".

We use it because in many cases, the alternatives are so much worse in human costs, although much cheaper in terms of American lives and money. We could, for example, go back to the "Massive Retaliation" strategy of Eisenhower's "New Look" program, where we build a defense around nuclear weapons and minimize the army so that it can't be deployed unless absolutely necessary. Iraq and Iran, with this strategy, wouldn't be problems because they'd be plastered plains of fused silica. I'll let you figure why this is worse than Flexible Response.

For example, isn't it possible that if we spent say, only 80 percent of that spent by every other country in the world added up we might still be secure..

Where would you like to cut the 20%? That's the problem with this kind of thinking - the actual budget number is an end-product, not a starting point for criticism. If you have criticism, aim it at specific programs, or at US strategy.

perhaps through effective diplomacy managed our burden-sharing more effectively?

We can't even get the continental Europeans, aside from some Eastern European allies (and most of their troops are gone now), to increase the amount of troops in Afghanistan, the "just war" designed to help put down an international terrorist organization. The troops that are already there often come with restrictions on their use, which is why the joke among American forces in Afghanistan is that ISAF (the name for the joint international force) actually stands for "I Saw Americans Fight". What makes you think "effective diplomacy" is going to change that?

FRANK ANTINUCCI

9:06 PM ET

February 5, 2009

There is no cut

Josh Rogin at CQ Politics debunked the false myth that there will be a cut in defense spending in FY2010. The politics involved are fascinating:

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003022493