You And What 44 Other Armies?
By Steve Hynd Friday Nov 21, 2008 2:30pm
The United States is projected to spend more on defense in FY 2009 than the next 45 highest spending countries combined, yet a push by conservatives and the military, backed by arms companies, is trying to lock the defense budget at 4% of GDP.
The unholy triumvirate of Pentagon deskwarriors, arms manufacturers and conservative fans of defense pork are ramping up a pressure campaign right now designed to inflate the military's budget requirements and thus provide a cushion for what they believe will be an Obama administration's pullback from record defense spending levels under Bush. By January, that campaign will be in high gear, with lobbyists and pundits enlisted to push for money to fund everything from missile defense plans against non-existant threats to stealth jets as counter-terrorism platforms against small groups of men with improvised bombs.
The centerpiece of their pressure plan is “Four Percent for Freedom” - a notion that defense spending should be pegged at a baseline of four percent of national GDP, forever amen. It's a dishonest and misleading slogan invented by the neoconservative Heritage Foundation but pushed by Dubya, John McCain, Republican lawmakers, CJCS Admiral Mullen and SecDef Bob Gates - one which if turned into policy will hamstring Obama's budget options, perpetuate a massive world of pork and undermine civilian control of the military. In this quarter's Parameters, the journal of the Army War College, Travis Sharp of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation lays out the reasons why Obama and the nation should say "No" to the triumvirate's lobbying.
The campaign is dishonest from the get-go. It's based on a claim that even Bush's profligate defense spending amounts to only 3.43% of GDP - but it neglects to account for $26 billion in non-DOD spending and $170 billion in supplementary spending on the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Taken all together, those amount to 4.73% of GDP and a staggering $711 billion dollars - a bailout a year or almost 50% of the governments budget. It's a vastly higher sum, in real terms, than the U.S. has ever spent on defense before and it outstrips, by a wide margin, spending by the rest of the world.
This means the United States will spend significantly more, in inflation-adjusted dollars, for defense in FY 2009 than it did during the peak years of the Korean War (1953; $545 billion), the Vietnam War (1968; $550 billion), or the 1980s Reagan-era buildup (1989; $522 billion).War (1953; $545 billion), the Vietnam War (1968; $550 billion), or the 1980s Reagan-era buildup (1989; $522 billion). The United States is also projected to spend more on defense in FY 2009 than the next 45 highest spending countries combined, including 5.8 times more than China (second highest), 10.2 times more than Russia (third highest), and 98.6 times more than Iran (22d highest). Indeed, the United States is expected to account for 48 percent of the world’s total military spending in FY 2009.
Travis points out that the only way the Bush administration could perpetuate this kind of overspend was through a massive increase in the deficit. If there is to be fiscal responsibility (as conservatives continually preach but don't practise) then that's not an option. Either taxes must rise or spending must be cut. As Travis writes: "Money spent on defense is money not spent on education, deficit reduction, infrastructure, housing assistance, or other important domestic spending priorities." Hamstringing Obama's budgetary options, then blaming him for the fallout, is a prospect sufficient to get many Republicans on board with this 4% conjob. But why should your retirement, your child's education or the future financial soundness of the nation suffer so that Republican's have a stick to beat Obama with, or furnish some dinosaur generals with shiny new toys which are overkill against any range of possible state enemies and don't have any application to today's non-state threats?
Our current armed forces have more than sufficient budget and manpower to deal with the current threat and [fourth-generation warfare] threats. However, they must be reorganized to fight the enemy as he is rather than remaining organized to fight the enemy of the past. The United States could take some current funding away from expensive high-tech weaponry, which may be useless in future Iraq-style conflicts, and redirect it toward enhanced intelligence, diplomacy, counterinsurgency training, language competency, humanitarian assistance, and nuclear nonproliferation programs.
A final argument against any 4% baseline is that it takes the power of the purse away from Congress, and the power of executive decision away from the Commander in Chief, in a very meaningful way. With no ability to set overall budgetary limits, civilian control of the military would be weakened and the current wasteful and pork-laden system would be set in stone beyond the powers of lawmakers.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in March 2008 that current programs are delivered 21 months late on average, five months later than the average in FY 2000. In FY 2000, the total acquisition cost of 75 programs increased from the initial estimate by six percent; by FY 2007, the cost growth percentage had more than quadrupled to 26 percent.30 “In most cases, programs also failed to deliver capabilities when promised—often forcing warfighters to spend additional funds on maintaining legacy systems,” GAO concluded.
This is what the unholy triumvirate want to keep -- a system that keeps the generals politically powerful, each in their own feudal holding, by virtue of the massive budgets they command. One that the arms manufacturers make out like bandits from. One that the political troughers and think-tank lobbists benefit from greatly. If they can make political hay from it too -- all the while neglecting to mention that it's your retirement, your child's education, you family's health, your taxes which will pay for their pork, then all well and good to their eyes.
Keep an eye on the Four percenters, they're going to be vocal and pervasive. The time to start countering their narrative and framing is now.
Crossposted from Newshoggers
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Had the mightiest army the world had ever seen. Where is Rome now?
it became too expensive to maintain a military presence in all of it's provinces. Sound familiar?
But what the hell:
We failed to learn the lesson of Viet Nam (overwhelming force, clear exit strategy).
We failed to learn the lesson of Japan (real estate bubble and reckless lending).
Why the hell would we learn the lesson of Rome?
Not to worry. In another quarter or two of economic melt, that 4% of GDP will bring the military budget equal to, say, Iceland.
The Heritage Foundation is out front on this. Before 1946, the US drew back the military spending drastically following the end of each war in which the nation had participated.
So where's the "heritage" begin? In 1782 or 1946?
Ah, irony...
The unholy triumverate of Pentagon deskwarriors, arms manufacturers and conservative fans of defense pork...
Triumverate : A punk rock band.
Triumvirate : any association of three in office or authority.
Thanks. I have editors, honestly. Gods do I need them.
to promote unexamined, automatic spending behavior, for any purpose. Even a 1% of building budget for Art policy, like my town has, goes wrong there.
Interesting this should be brought up, Chris Martenson talks about what wars do to economies. It's a comprehensive 3 hour presentation covering the most important issues we face over the next 20 years all of which are going to start affecting the Obama presidency from the day he enters office.
Crash course on the economy
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
Can't recommend enough
His crash course on "Peak Oil" is chilling.
I am glad you watch it, I'm trying my best to get people see what we are facing.
Chilling is right, I started learning this 6 years ago because I wanted to understand economics better and be able to invest with confidence and what I discovered was the world was in bigger trouble than most knew or were willing to admit and the savvy investors were putting their money on things that do well in crashes.
What you saw is why they all will jump back into oil. What scares me is I'm not sure Obama has all the information he needs, I have great faith in Obama but I have little faith in Washington.
If we cant afford to care of the poor in this country, then the pentagon doesn't get all of the toys that they want.
I must agree.
The military as a "make work" program for the underemployed class. It's been the way out of the red states- or the red areas of blue states- for decades now.
And, in fact, with the bad economy and Iraq less deadly, recruitment is up.
Apparently Bush wants his third term. He must feel entitled. Difference is, it will be Obama in the hot seat trying to untangle Bush's bullshit web. This crap needs to be stopped now. I don't know how it can be but just the fact Bush is being so transparently trying to fuck Obama before January 20th must be apparent to everyone. I realize 'fairness' is not something the Republicans prize a whole lot but this is ridiculous. Maybe even Pelosi can the malfeasance in this? Never mind.
I think this is the Bush Admninistration's version of " scorched earth" Policy. Turn the country into a wreck before Obama takes over.
I always thought that Bush Admin has been so bad, it has screwed the next 4 or five adminitrations to come. So sad to be right.
Eisenhower warned my grandparents that this would happen.
This bloated beast of a country is having 'The Big One' (ala Fred Sanford) and the guys with guns are ransacking the neighborhood in the confusion. FastForward five years and the whole thing is still going on and the guys are running out of shit to steal.
Why didn't he say it in '47, or '52 or '56?
Not saying I disagree with Ike, but he could have done something about it at some point- like, maybe, during his presidency. Like in '57, maybe, when he was a lame duck?
I think Ike only awakened gradually to the fact that he was being used by the Military Industrial Complex.
Eisenhower, as President, would have been well aware from the day he took office, at the latest, of the long term containment policy introduced by George Kennan in the "Long Telegram"- that the way to force Soviet collapse is to outspend 'em militarily.
And Ike would have been well awre that the reason the US was so effective against the Axis in WWII was because we could build so much more military shit than anyone else- ships, tanks, airplanes, bombs, shells...Hell, we didn't beat the Wehrmacht because our soldiers were better- each side had its own pros and cons- but we could hit them with 10 shells to every one of their's.
Our industrial ability was Hitlers biggest fear of us. He even acknowledged as much in one of his manifests. We have been torn down industrially over the last 35 years so far that it wouldn't be much of a fear now. Sure we make some things still, but the larger manufacturing base (real buildings and labor) are owned by a small few cabal of rich people (see Carlyle group and their ilk).
Myself, I fear when these swine decide a takeover of the US is in order. We will all be at their mercy. But I often wondered if I could cut it as a rebel under the radar, hope me or my sons never have to find out.
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The profit making industry finds that it is far more lucrative to create the largest standing army the world has ever seen and let the citizens of that country, from which that army stems, go hungry, homeless and ill.
THERE'S A KILLING TO BE HAD AT MAKING WAR!
... When will Americans get their health care promised? When our Nation has 3.8 TRILLION dollars to bail out corporations and financial markets, when our Government has the HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars for war and nearly another TRILLION dollars to fund an ever growing military, this isn't keeping in line of our Founding Principles... "The pursuit of happiness..." should not come at the expense of corporate interests.
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The profit making industry finds that it is far more lucrative to create the largest standing army the world has ever seen... [emphasis added]
The largest standing military force is the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China. Even at the height of the Cold War, the Red Army of the Soviet Union was a larger force than the US armed forces.
What we're talking about here is all of the stuff, and the profit there is in producing it.
And selling it on the market
Conservatives loves them some well-funded mass murder.
When you do the research and discover how many in the Senate and the House are invested in corporations such as Halliburton, G.E., Dyncorp etc., then when you look back at the votes those representatives made to appropriate funds to those very corporations, suddenly a major conflict of interest pops up!
**New rule**: All Americans who serve in the U.S. Congress must divest of all investments prior to taking office that might potentially be affected by their votes in the future. When in office they may not invest in any corporation that might ever potentially benefit from their votes. And once they have left office they may never work as lobbyists to promote the connections they made at the taxpayers expense.
If I were a member of Congress, I would try to push the above legislation through.
Who wants to bet that just a scintilla of that is going to the health care for the young men and women whose minds were warped by both of these wars?
After the homeless Vietnam vets die off they will be replaced by Iraqi war vets.
You think they'd even get that much?
The military budget is killing our country. A dollar invested in a military machine produces nothing, creates no wealth, does not improve our infrastructure, educate its citizen or improve our quality of life.
This is not to say we do not need a military to protect us, but we have gone too far. Our military is now designed to take over the world, rather than the protection of the mainland.
The republican fear machine and the military comples wants us to believe that this bullshit is necessary, and if we do not bring it under control, it will kill our nation.
Only the people who are making weapons are benefiting from this increadable spending, and we can no longer afford spending these vast sums. I truly believe the reason for this is to expidite the concentration of wealth and turn the USA into a third world nation to be ruled by the republican despots.
dont worry about money , as soon as obama wins the war in afganistan and parts of packistan , we will be rolling in the big bucks , and the pentagon will be shut down and reopened in a porta potty in oxnard!
I found this over at At-Largely.
Obviously the rates of non-wartime military spending that began after WWII had a lot- if not everything- to do with George Kennan's notion that if we could out-spend the USSR militarily, the USSR would collapse from within due to the failure to meet the needs of their people.
Now it seems that since the collapse of the USSR (a victory claimed by the GOP- ha!), the political right in the US can't get beyond the mindset. This seems to be a given.
What I don't get is the failure or inability of what remains of the US industrial sector to retool and produce consumer goods, rather than military products. Do you think that there would be economic success or failure if the war industry attempted to shift its focus back to consumer goods?
given the fact that, for security's sake, military production is done inside the US, without competition from low wage countries (China, Mexico...China) that these industries would face in the consumer market.
And not one I have a ready-made answer to. But I'll try. A lot of those defense dollars could go into real infrastructure projects, which inject much of their money at the bottom rather than the top - or in small business microloans, which would be even better. That would make each dollar work harder than injecting money at the top of the pyramid and waiting/hoping for trickle down. But there's such a massive profit margin in arms manufacture, especially once procurement inflation takes over, that such money might as well be tax cuts for the rich as far as economic stimulus is concerned. Most of it goes straight offshore into trusts and tax shelters. So no, I don't think the economy would collapse if a big chunk of the defense budget was re-directed, but I think it would make profits for a bunch of fat cats thinner, which is why they didn't do it after the Cold war and don't want to do it now.
Regards, C
It's not a central point of the movie, but one thing I took away from it is that the free-falling price of oil had more to do with the Soviet Union's downfall than anything Reagan did.
The Soviets' overly centralized economy sucked for a long time, but as long as oil kept rising, they could stay in business. When it dropped like a rock in the '80s, they wuz screwed.
with consumer goods under Khrushchev...then Kennedy claimed the missile gap, and ramped up military spending.
I think oil has a lot more to do with current conditions, but by the '70's the Soviet people lined up to shop in grocery stores with barely stocked shelves. People tend to get fed up with their governments when there's no food on the table.
Especially with central planning inefficiencies.
But I guess they were still limping along while oil was rising, and its sudden drop broke their back.
Low oil is hurting them again, but this time they have a lot more cash reserves (which they're burning through rapidly).
Scrap missile defence. It's a waste of money. It doesn't work. It will never work. Even the scientists working on it think that. It even fails the rigged tests. Half a trillion dollars gone so far.
It's actually more successful as a failure for the people skimming off the cash spent on things that don't work.
The country can be much better defended for less by spending the money on conventional armed forces, especially better intelligence capabilities and dare I say it ... diplomacy?
However I say this is a "simple" method because it's more than likely that they'll never do it regardless.
Given that the Defense Department hasn't actually been in the business of defense for decades, and officially hasn't been since the Bush Doctrine, it might as well go completely Orwellian and be renamed the Department of Peace.
War and occupation is part of American culture and has been since the nation's founding. It is so engrained that even a self-admitted war criminal can fully anticipate being publically referred to as a hero. The cultural change agent may eventually be economics.
Or a guarantee for more wars?
Obama is not what you think he is. He will betray the American people just as Bush has. He is controlled by the same puppet masters that control Bush. Period.
Barack Obama's campaign has pocketed $870,165 from defense-contractor sources, 34% more than the $647,313 in contributions McCain's campaign received from the same sector.
"I don't see defense spending declining in the first years of an Obama Administration," one of the Democrat's top defense advisers, Richard Danzig, said recently.
in my two posts (at 15:30 and 15:37) above.
With well-paying industrial jobs fleeing the country quickly, how much can you cut back on defense spending without sending the economy into a deeper hole?
It's nice to think that we could just cut off that spending without any negative side effects, but I haven't seen anything resembling a spelled out plan on how to get it done. I'm looking for those plans, too!
If we brought our troops home from 130 countries.. We would all be wealthy and our national security would not be threatened. We are protecting other countries borders and interest instead of those of the American people. We are acting no different than Nazi Germany. Will Obama change this? No. He answers to the globalist.
Should we allow the military of those 130 countries to operate here in the United States of America? Would that be ok? Well guess what there are several who already are.
The military industrial complex is not an employment sector but a mass murder machine. We've been warned before, we have ignored it and will face the consequence for letting it happen.
Obama cannot be trusted. What will it take for people to realize he was chosen for a specific reason. He will NOT answer to the American people. Just wait and see.
The problem is that there are an awful lot of Americans who do disagree. An un-nuanced argument like yours, if implemented, could well bring the war to our streets.
It's a Pandora's Box situation. How do you stuff the bad hoodoo back into the box?
Nah - close the Pentagon. Bring back Norman Mailer, the SDS and the yippies to march on the Pentagon and levitate it...
if we close gitmo where we going to torture afgan prisoners at?
everyone yuks it up.
Reality: the world economy is going into the toilet.
“I have this feeling man, 'cos you know there’s a handful of people who actually run everything. That's true, it's provable, it's not... I'm not a fuckin' conspiracy nut, it's provable. A handful. A very small elite run and own these corporations, which include the mainstream media. I have this feeling that whoever's elected president, like Clinton was; no matter what your promises you promise on the campaign trail blah,blah,blah… when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-fucks who got you in there...and you’re in this smoky room and this little film screen comes down. And a big guy with a cigar goes... ‘Roll the film.’ And, it's a shot, of the Kennedy assassination, from an angle you've never seen before.....that looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll. And then the film screen goes up and the lights come up and they go, to the new president… ‘Any questions?’ ‘Err, just what my agenda is?’ ‘First we bomb Baghdad.’ ‘You got it.’”
cnn just anounced obama said his first order of buisness will be afganistan , im guessing hes watched the movie!
I think he watched the movie a long time ago tyree, or he wouldn't be President-Elect Obama.
concerned my estimation allso! pusan parimiter
(A little light research for the evening on Afghanistan...):
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/arti...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m48907&hd=&size=1&l=e
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com...
That's exactly how it works. The Carlysle Group comes to mind.
good guess
Your comment about the Pentagon porta-potty in Oxnard gave me a big laugh!
im here to serve calgarylady }
we think alike.
great minds run in the right dirction calgary!
The fact remains it is impossible to pull off an occupation in the 21st century. The world will not stand for the level of brutality that would be required. How can this even be called a "defense" budget when the US citizenry is better armed than most armies (Dick Armey excluded)?
So when they say it is pegged at 4 %, do they mean that when the economy totally collapses, we will literaly have to hold a bakesale to buy a bomber?
Brilliant!
or the Russians, Saudis etc.
then our new revamped army could then threaten their interests around the globe.
or do we already work for them and their interests!
All of that money the Pentagon has received all these years, and what did those serving get in return?
-Unarmored Humvees
-No IED detection devices
-Contaminated food provided by outrageously paid private contractors
-less money in pay than private contractors
-poorly wired facilities where some soldiers were electrocuted
-bricks of money handed out all over Iraq and no doubt pocketed by countless contractors and members of the Iraq Provisional Authority led by Paul Bremer
The longer the Pentagon is allowed to wheel and deal in such a wreckless manner, the greater the chances there is for another war or conflict. Illegal arms dealing has skyrocketed over the past years in major zones of conflict all over the world. American made weapons!
You think this might explain why our schools are failing, our bridges and levees are falling to pieces, and Social Security is going under?
It's called priorities. With the chance of anyone attacking the U.S. (with conventional weapons) somewhere between 0 and 0.01, ought we spend 50 cents out of every taxpayer dollar on defense?
The US now makes 2 things in great numbers: weapons and cars. Soon we won't make cars. Ike was right. Cheney and his buddies are about make a killing. Actually, Cheney has not stopped making a killing in the last 8 years. Can we hope we have a real congress that investigates and a real AG who prosecutes?
Absolutely sickening , nothing but corruption and lunacy . And get this , " there is not enough money for social security , Medicare , the infrastructure , education , health care " etc . All for " defense " no less ! Against who , Martian invaders ? This country as it is makes me sick in more ways than one .
A little more than ten years ago, the Project For A New American Century (PNAC) was begun. A project--according to its chairman William Kristol--"dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle."
PNAC's website can be found here: http://www.newamericancentury.org/
Ten years later, our economy, our foreign policy and our standing in the world are a shambles because the proponents of this little project--heavy on the "the military needs more funding" component--found someone dumb enough to actually DO WHAT THEY PROPOSED!
Now, these same jerks are trying to perpetuate this horrific debacle under another guise. The military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address is real. It is in control. And it is voracious. Rent a copy of the documentary Why We Fight by Eugene Jarecki. The defense industry has eaten out this country's substance and wants more. The time of unquestioned, unfettered military spending should end and end immediately.
Eisenhower's warning can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdrGKwkmxAU
He is speaking directly to every one of us forty-eight years later and calling on us to STOP THESE PEOPLE! Find the whole speech on YouTube.
Here is a little-quoted excerpt from his address:
This isn't a liberal issue. This isn't a conservative issue. This is an issue of the direst national and international importance. Four percent of GDP for war? No. No. NO!
The United States is projected to spend more on defense in FY 2009 than the next 45 highest spending countries combined
Indeed, the United States is expected to account for 48 percent of the world’s total military spending in FY 2009.
So, assuming the "next 45 spending spending countries" were stacked up as closely as possible theo the US budget without crossing it, does this mean that the entire rest of the world (meaning everyone except the US and the next 45 countries) is left with 4% of the world's military budget?
Yup
So long as it doesn't get spent on the poor, disabled, elderly, sick or CHILDREN. Or infrastructure, or health care.
How about dismantling the "Space Program"? Does anyone REALLY think a few pretty pictures from space are worth the trillions of dollars that have been spent since 1960? What else have they really accomplished? How much did they waste on the Mars Orbiter that crashed? What are they really spending every year to keep the space station going so a few people can play "lost in space"? Now they're spending billions to go up there and give them a new bathroom. They really need to dismantle that space station, bring those people down and scrap the whole thing. AND cut the military budget in HALF too.
would the "triumvirate" make that happen in such a way that Obama could not undo it with an Executive order, hmmm?
Last time I checked, Congress has the power of the purse, and Democrats hold the majority right now.
Soooo, the neocons and the arms industry can wish whatever they please, but some one ought to give us compelling evidence that this 1) can be achieved before Obama takes over AND 2) the new administration could not undo it.
at the MIC's campaign contributions to Dems, including Obama.
I guess they haven't read the Pentagon report that came out last week saying that many of the high dollar useless weapons programs like "star wars" missle defense need to be cut. They say this because the continued military spending levels are a national security threat. Do this idiots supporting the 4% BS understand that doing that will make the nation weaker according to the Pentagon?
Was by a Pentagon associated think-tank but the 4% idea is being backed by Adm. Mullen and Bob Gates. The Pentagon is split on this, but the 4%ers have some heavy backing.
Take a quick look at what conservatives and the military, backed by arms companies are spending your hard earned tax $ on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys5z_rwOF1U
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