The Think Tank Industrial Complex
Steven Walt says:
Here’s why it won’t happen any time soon. As Cindy Williams, former director of the National Security division of the Congressional Budget Office and now a senior research scientist at MIT, points out in an as-yet unpublished paper for the Tobin Project, DOD is insulated from serious cuts by an array of impressive political advantages. First, its budget is more than 50 percent of all federal discretionary spending, and its sheer size gives it a lot of bureaucratic clout. Second, the Pentagon has a large domestic constituency: there are 1.4 million men and women in uniform, 850,000 paid members of the National Guard and Reserve, and 650,000 civilian employees. Forget GM, Ford and Chrysler: the Department of Defense is the largest single employer in the whole country. Now add the companies that provide goods and services for the military. Their employees amount to about 5.2 million jobs, which is a pretty impressive domestic constituency. And don’t forget those 25 million veterans, who are hardly shrinking violets when defense spending is concerned. Finally, a well-financed group of Beltway bandits and Washington think tanks stand ready to question the patriotism of any politician (and especially any Democrat) who tries to put the Pentagon on a diet.
It seems unlike a realist to cite domestic political dynamics as the cause of national security policy, but clearly this is correct. And I would note the last point about the think tanks has implications that go beyond the budget. People don’t like to be dishonest — to advocate for policies they disagree with purely in order for money. And actually the think tank lifestyle isn’t very lucrative. Which means that if people and firms who profit from high levels of military expenditures want to support think tanks that support high levels of military expenditures they need to identify individuals who genuinely believe that high levels of military expenditures are good and properly. Naturally, people who think that kind of thing tend to be people who have a somewhat paranoid attitude toward foreign countries and who are strongly predisposed to favor aggressive use of military force by the US and our allies alike.
That in turn comes to be a serious distortion in the public conversation.
And it goes further. Many members of congress don’t represent districts that particularly benefit from high levels of military spending. And those members tend not to seek out assignments on the congressional committees that deal with military expenditures. But those members whose districts do benefit from said expenditures do seek out those assignments in order to maximize the share going to their folks. That has a distorting effect all its own, but it also re-enforces the think tanks issue. Members of congress like to call experts in to testify who they know are going to agree with them. So if the armed forces committees are dominated by people who favor big military spending, they’ll tend to call in “experts” who agree with that agenda — hawks.
This, in turn, gives hawkish think tank types more juice and credibility. And this, in part, is where the Very Serious People come from. Frank Gaffney gets on TV all the time but you’ll never see Carl Conetta. Gaffney’s a crank, but Conetta’s something much worse — a peacenik.
73 Responses to “The Think Tank Industrial Complex”
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January 6th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
This is why I like the 9/11 Commission’s report. The USA spends more on “defense” than every other country in the world combined. But 19 guys delivered the worst enemy attack on New York and Washington in something like 200 years.
January 6th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
The DOD receives 50 percent of discretionary spending?!?!! That is actually ridiculous. I had no idea it was that high. There are so many more things we could do with that money and still have a very capable military.
January 6th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
“The DOD receives 50 percent of discretionary spending?!?!! That is actually ridiculous.”
To put that in some context, you may be surprised to see how little of the federal budget is comprised by discretionary spending.
January 6th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I’ve worked as a defense contractor for about 10 years and lemme tell you, we’re not going any damn wheres. It’s a complete echo chamber, where the phrases and memes du jour are manufactured by think tanks, broadcast by the Pentagon, and immediately echoed back by defense contractors hungry for defense dollars, reinforcing the mindset.
The term I personally detest the most is “The Long War” (TM), which really is transparently an attempt (very successful) in helping to lay the groundwork for immense defense spending for decades into the future.
Forget the militar-industrial complex. The War on Terror is an industry, man. The War on Terror should have its own published GDP. The War on Terror should probably at least be given observer status at the UN, it’s that big and sophisticated and geared to its own growth.
January 6th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
The difficulty with arguments about the level of DOD spending being higher then the rest of the world combined is that they neglect to mention the massive level of military commitments around the world. The US defense establishment is not only defending the US, it is defending numerous countries around the world (e.g. South Korea). As long as these commitments exist, the level of military spending will remain high.
The bottom line here is that if one wants to reduce military spending, the only way to do it is to reduce US military commitments that are for the purpose of defending other countries. For instance, why do we have a large contingent of forces in Germany? Is Germany under threat from some country?
January 6th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
What amazes me is how little bang the American military delivers for its buck. Seriously, when was the last time the US got in a fight with a serious country? That would have been when China weighed in, in North Korea.
Apart from that? Well, the recent history is Libya, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Iraq (Gulf War), Somalia, Serbia, Iraq (Desert whatever), Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq (invasion), Afghanistan, Iraq (occupation).
This isn’t reading like some list of powerhouses. Mostly its tiny, dirt poor, ditchwaters in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, we’re sending aircraft carriers up against places whose idea of a navy is a leaky rowboat, and whose air defense consists of 12 year olds with slingshots.
The closest the US military came to an actual fight was probably Gulf War I, where the enemy was a nation with 1/12 the population of America, 1/50th the GDP, which had been near exhausted and bankrupted by eight years of trench warfare, which was surrounded entirely by hostile states, and we had just about every country on the planet backing us up.
Not taking anything from the Gulf War at all. It was a good thing. But let’s face it, no one is going to be singing songs about it. It was like Navy Seals with Sledghammers vs Kittens.
The subsequent Iraq campaigns of Bill Clinton, and finally the war of George W. Bush were against an enemy even more starved, bankrupt and rotted.
Yet, as we’re finding out, Iraq seems to be the upper limit of America’s military ability. Vietnam, let’s face it, made us their bitch. Iraq’s pretty much a mess, but it’s arguable we’re holding on.
But let’s face it, after this uninspiring performance, does anyone seriously think America is up to taking on countries the size of Pakistan or Iran, much less real countries with some actual hurting power under their belt.
Let’s face it, the true accomplishment of America’s military is no more and no less than sucking up giant quantities of money.
Actually fighting? Not so much.
Actually, it turns out that we’re better at buying. This worked with the invasion of Iraq, as one Iraq general after another ordered his divisions to stand down and stand aside in return for fat swiss bank accounts. In Afghanistan, the CIA parachuted in with suitcases of money and bought the Warlords. Back to Iraq, the Sunni awakening movement’s loyalty is based on a pipeline of Yankee green. It makes a bit of sense. After all, why pay 500 million dollars for another Stealth Bomber when you could just take a fraction of that and buy yourself the country?
Of course, it’s still fun to blow things up. And if we bomb a few buildings while elsewhere cash is changing hands, it makes for positive self image at home.
January 6th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
And yet, for all those advantages, all of which existed 16 years ago, Bill Clinton managed to get his post-Cold War “peace dividend.”
If Obama has the sense to start pulling us out of Afghanistan as well as Iraq, we might see history repeat itself.
January 6th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Matt,
Maybe you could come up with catchy name for this phenomena, like “iron triangle”. Then, everyone would learn about it in freshman political science classes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle
January 6th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
“What amazes me is how little bang the American military delivers for its buck. Seriously, when was the last time the US got in a fight with a serious country?”
Leaving aside the proxy wars we’ve fought against major powers, the primary mission of the U.S. military is to deter major wars.
January 6th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Well Dave, all I can say is that given the spectacular performance of the US military in the proxy wars, we can all thank our lucky stars that we never had to fight a major war. Or we’d all be brushing up right now on our Russian/Mandarin/Arabic.
Looking back though… wouldn’t it have been cheaper to just buy the Soviet Union?
January 6th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Skeptic:
Military might, no matter how great, is of extremely limited usefulness. Wiley kittens can almost always outlast Navy Seals with sledgehammers.
January 6th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Empires seem to follow a pattern. It begins with economic prowess and expansion. As the economic hegemony expands, military forces are expanded to support and defend.
Then things get interesting. The military takes on a life of its own. The economy starts to go flat. But the military continues to expand, consuming more and more resources, more and more space.
Conversely, the more bloated it becomes, the less effective it becomes. The true focus of the military becomes politics at home.
Eventually, the terminal stages of decline are when the military stops being all that effective, increasingly, victories are bought by paying off or buying the enemy.
Sound familiar?
January 6th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I have a flash for Mr. skeptic and tsg. If it wasn’t for the US military, the folks on the East Coast would be speaking German and the folks on the West Coast would be speaking Japanese.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
More coherent SLC – all hail the military for what they did 60 years ago.
What the military did in times of real need in no way makes up for what it has done since. Vietnam? Cambodia? Laos? Grenada? Panama? Iraq?
Sure there have been a couple of humanitarian missions thrown in to make it seem like they aren’t just evil fuckers out to slaughter innocents and wreck America’s image. But let’s not pretend that what the military did in the forties has any bearing on what they do now.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
I believe the word for this is Corruption.
It aint always illegal, in fact, in the most corrupt societies, it’s quite the opposite. And this is a very, very, very corrupt society.
Our downfall is growing increasingly imminent, and it might be a good idea to ignore the difficulty that such a confrontation will have and just go after the military. If we don’t, we will fall. We already have a near-useless military that can barely handle a bunch of conscripts and untrained volunteers. They only manage that by paying people not to fight us. We’re royally fucked if we ever have to fight a real battle because all of our money is spent making campaign donors rich.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
I have a flash for Mr. Evil Twin and Mr. soullite. Don’t mess with Uncle Sam. Don’t believe it, just ask A. Hitler, B. Mussolini, H. Tojo, and S. Hussein.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
SLC, actually, with apologies to Philip K. Dick… No.
If you go back and look at the actual historical record, eight out of ten dead German soldiers were killed by the Russians. Only one in ten were accountable to the Americans.
What this means is that it was Stalin who beat Hitler, who destroyed Hitler’s armies, and advanced and conquered Berlin. The Western Front, for the most part, was a sideshow.
Now, fair enough, America really did whip Japan all by itself, fair and square. Of course, Japan had less than half the population of the United States, and perhaps a quarter the industrial capacity, and much of its forces were already tied up in China. So all Japan really had going for it was a head start.
As for what actually won the war, the atom bomb was not built by soldiers, it was built by eggheads. Try and keep.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
People don’t like to be dishonest — to advocate for policies they disagree with purely in order for money.
Really?
January 6th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
You forgot that panamanian Juggernaut, M. Noriega, the Tiger of Grenada, whazzisname.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
If it wasn’t for the US military, the folks on the East Coast would be speaking German and the folks on the West Coast would be speaking Japanese.
Yeah, they did a good thing – 60 years ago, so that’s pretty irrelevant to our current discussion. And it only worked because the evil commies weren’t afraid to throw in 10 million dead soldiers.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
It should be noted Walt’s analysis hinges on this:
“our vital interests are fairly easy to protect and our most fervent adversaries are a rag-tag band of criminals who don’t pose a genuine threat to our way of life”
I’m sure a number of commentators here agree; I’m sure a number disagree.
But to the degree that the country as a whole disagrees, defense spending is going to reflect that.
What, to my eyes, Walt does in this article is to assume bad faith on the disagreement — attributing the beliefs to policies, rather than vice versa.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Stephen!!!
January 6th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
the atom bomb was not built by soldiers, it was built by eggheads.
Many of the 5.2 million employees of the “companies that provide goods and services for the military” that MattY refers to are those very eggheads you’re talking about. Those with a vested professional interest in continued military spending come from a wide range of backgrounds.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
“Well Dave, all I can say is that given the spectacular performance of the US military in the proxy wars, we can all thank our lucky stars that we never had to fight a major war.”
I doubt our adversaries in those proxy wars would share your snarky appraisal of our armed forces’ performance in those wars.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Here’s a nice graphic showing where the federal spending goes:
http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm
Military spending is actually up to 54% under Bush (from 50% under Clinton).
Notice that the first thing that happened to Obama when he got elected was he started to receive daily threat assessment briefings. After awhile every president becomes paranoid hearing this sort of stuff constantly.
The military always gets the president’s ear before anyone else.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
There are two ways to reduce defense costs without decreasing the department’s capabilities. One would be to not provide dependent benefits for servicemen in their initial enlistment, reserving those benefits only for those who reenlist (that might be a little difficult to do with a volunteer military currently fighting two wars). The second would be to go back to conscription, which would reduce the need for generous enlistment bonuses and other benefits. Neither, of course, would be politically popular. Even many mainstream doves like the idea of a well-paid volunteer military.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Cut military benefits? How about raising military benefits and pay and cutting out the contractors. Cut our star wars. Cut out corruption and waste—
How much was missing from the Pentagon?
January 6th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Yeah Dave, the Panamanians and the Grenadans know better than to mess with G.I. Joe again. Come on.
You start talking to foreign soldiers, the Germans, the Brits, the Russians, hell, even the Canadians and their contempt for the competence and effectiveness of the average American soldier is pretty plain.
As for proxy wars, the only proxy war that the US forces got involved in were Korea and Vietnam. Korea was, at best, a draw. Vietnam was a dead loss.
Everywhere else it was just spook shows, and often badly run spook shows.
So go sell the bilge to someone who buys piss.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Actually, American soldiers aren’t particularly well paid or covered, and they’re certainly not the biggest part of the US defense budget.
Most of the budget, and the really expensive items come from super-expensive weapons projects. Projects of often dubious utility. Fighter jets that won’t fight, star wars initiatives that will never work, and obsolete warships.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Okay, that makes it clear: SLC is a moron. To put Hussein in the same category as Hitler and Tojo is beyond monumentally stupid. I would count the ways, but no one wants to read a 47 page exegesis on the stupidity of SLC. Let’s just leave it at a simple question: What act of aggression by Saddam Hussein justified his removal in 2003? Alternatively, which of Saddam Hussein’s allies committed an act of aggression against the United States forcing us to declare war on them, resulting in his declaration of war against us?
The fact is that Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the United States and the war against the Iraqi people was a war of aggression. It had more in common with the invasion of Poland than with the invasion at Normandy.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Re Skeptic
As usual, Mr. Skeptic doesn’t tell the whole story. The strategic bombing campaign over Germany, when it was directed at military and industrial targets instead of civilians, was instrumental in preventing German industry from building large numbers of tanks which which would have allowed he Germans to put up a much stiffer opposition to the Russians. Now, of course, Mr. Skeptic will immediately repeat the statistic that German munitions production in 1944 was actually greater then in 1941, thus proving the futility of strategic bombing. Unfortunately, the critics of strategic bombing always forget to inform their credulous readers that the percent of German industry devoted to armaments was 25% in 1941 and 80% in 1944. One shudders to think what the results would have been if the Germans had had the industrial base in 1944 they had in 1940 and devoted the same 80% to munitions.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Re Skeptic
Speaking of the Russians, mention should be made of the great effort put forward by the British and American merchant marines to keep the Soviet Union in the war, especially in 1941 and 1942. British and American merchant marine losses on the Murmansk/Archangel run were substantial. Read about what happened to convoy PQ17 in which 26 out of 37 ships were sunk by German submarines and the Luftwaffe. Without these convoys, it is overwhelmingly likely that the Soviet Union would have been defeated.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
All of which has fuck all to do with the bloated beast that is the military industrial complex in the United States. Yes, sixty years ago it was a good idea to have the military give assistance in the removal of two very bad guys. When was the last time they did that?
When was the last time they invaded a nation that had no real military might and posed no real threat to the national security of the United States? Oh yeah, that’s been the mission pretty much ever since WWII.
January 6th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Well, allied support was important but you don’t win wars through areal bombing and organizing supply lines. Somebody has to do the actual fighting on the ground and that was done overwhelmingly by the Russians as a casual glance at the numbers will reveal. Stalin could have been defeated at several points in time quite easily, with or without allied support, but fortunately that’s not what happened.
January 6th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Re Evil Twin
Excuse me, the US didn’t invade anybody in the Korean War. The US came to the aid of South Korea which was invaded by troops from North Korea and would have been completely overrun and taken over without the US military intervention.
I would also point out that the US didn’t start the Gulf War I. It was Mr. Saddam Hussein who invaded Kuwait. Absent the US military intervention, Mr. Hussein would still be in power and would control both Iraq and Kuwait with their massive oil reserves.
Re novakant
I absolutely agree with Mr. novakant that wars are won by grunts on the ground. However, absent the strategic bombing campaign and the resupply of the Soviet Union over the Murmansk/Archangel run during WW 2, the former Soviet Union would probably have been defeated. It was a near run thing as it was. In fact, had Hitler not made two grievous strategic blunders before the war, Germany might have won anyway. The blunders were failure to build a fleet of heavy 4 engine bombers and choosing to build the super dreadnaught battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz instead of Uboats.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Oh lord, this is sad. But on the other hand, SLC is actually reading, so this is a good thing. He’s made a foolish assertion, been blown out of the water for it, and now he’s actually delving into the subject looking for information or arguments to support his position.
On the whole, I’d say this is a good thing, and I commend SLC for it. Unlike some people, I’m not willing to write him off. anyhow… onwards…
As usual, Mr. Skeptic doesn’t tell the whole story. The strategic bombing campaign over Germany, when it was directed at military and industrial targets instead of civilians, was instrumental in preventing German industry from building large numbers of tanks which which would have allowed he Germans to put up a much stiffer opposition to the Russians.
Actually, the historical record is that significant bombing didn’t start until well after the tide had turned on the eastern front. There was no significant impact of allied bombing in 1940, because there were no allies – the United States would not enter until 1942. Nor was britain bombing Germany in 1940 because it was fighting the Battle of Britain, which ran as early as June 1940 to as late as May 1941.
Now, of course, Mr. Skeptic will immediately repeat the statistic that German munitions production in 1944 was actually greater then in 1941, thus proving the futility of strategic bombing. Unfortunately, the critics of strategic bombing always forget to inform their credulous readers that the percent of German industry devoted to armaments was 25% in 1941 and 80% in 1944. One shudders to think what the results would have been if the Germans had had the industrial base in 1944 they had in 1940 and devoted the same 80% to munitions.
Bravo, attempting to anticipate and counter a defense. Nice effort, but sorry, it doesn’t wash. Your argument rests on the unstated thesis that British bombing efforts in 1941 or 1942, created a net loss of industrial capacity that limited the german war effort in 1944.
Well, okay, interesting. But you’ve got a couple of problems. First, you’re assuming that this is something similar to monopoly, where you take a piece off the board and its off. Not the case, bombed industrial facilities could be repaired, rebuilt, relocated, salvaged or simply replaced. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of WWII for both the United States and the Soviet Union, and presumably for Germany, was the creation of new manufacturing and industry to meet the war demand. At the end of the war, there were a lot more factories and they were a lot more advanced and efficient than there had been at the beginning of the war. So it doesn’t necessarily follow that bombing in 1941 or 42 would have left any trace.
Second, it’s one of the oddities of the War that Germany never fully converted to a war economy, certainly not in the fashion that both the US and USSR had. By the end of the war, Germany still had 20% of its industrial capacity unused, untouched, unallocated to the war effort. Big mistake on the Germans part. I suppose so. But the truth is that Hitler was reluctant to ask for sacrifices from the Germans, he’d offered a pile of victories, when the victories stopped coming, he wouldn’t admit it. Even a few months before the fall of Berlin, many German civilians were in complete denial.
Third, you’re ignoring labour shortages for your hypothetical extra industrial production. It’s actually illusory, as I’ve explained. But let’s assume you were right, and that if not for the earlier bombing, German industrial war capacity was 20 to 30% greater… where’s the manpower coming from? Recall that the germans were so short of manpower they were using slave labour in their camps. So it’s questionable that this ‘extra capacity’ was ever available.
Good try though. And I’m impressed that you’ve gone out of your way and tried to dig a little deeper and think a little more than you’ve ever done on the Israel/Palestine thing.
Speaking of the Russians, mention should be made of the great effort put forward by the British and American merchant marines to keep the Soviet Union in the war, especially in 1941 and 1942. British and American merchant marine losses on the Murmansk/Archangel run were substantial. Read about what happened to convoy PQ17 in which 26 out of 37 ships were sunk by German submarines and the Luftwaffe. Without these convoys, it is overwhelmingly likely that the Soviet Union would have been defeated.
I’m glad you mentioned that. I had family in the Merchant Marine and I’ve always felt their contributions have gone unrecognized.
If you were to argue that the Merchant Marine convoys were vital to the survival of Britain… I’d shake your hand. No question.
The USSR? Not so much. The problem is apparent if you look at a map.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Front_1941-06_to_1941-12.png
As you can see, little to no access to Soviet territories. Particularly during the winter. In order to get to Leningrad, ships had to navigate between Norway and Denmark, german controlled countries, and then along a thousand miles of Baltic coast.
The truth was that allied shipping to the USSR was of immense symbolic value, occasionally quite useful, but by no means essential.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
@13: You’re an idiot. Our shores, midway not-withstanding, were never threatened.
@14: Speaking as a raging liberal but 2 1/2 year air force veteran, currently in the IRR, fuck you. Blackwater is evil. bush is evil. Rumsfeld and cheney are evil. The fuckers who actually succumbed to the stanford prison syndrome are borderline evil. But the every day military are at worst mis-guided, and while I rarely agree with their politics, they tend to be good people and a reasonable cross section of the US. A lot of service oriented folks. Not a lot of thinkers, which is a big part of the problem, but not surprising.
Oh yeah…defense contractors (the actual companies and management) are VERY evil. They’re the problem, more than anything.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Well, someone almost as witty as SLC. Fuck you too nitwit. Your status as a liberal means nothing to me. The military has blindly gone along with every stupid fucking slaughter of innocents that any doorknob at the head of the government has desired. Whether that was the bombing of Cambodians, the bombings of Panamanians, or the terrorist attack on Baghdad where they used hundreds of bombs in an illegal, insane, and unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the head of the Iraqi government, the military just lined right up for it.
The United States volunteer military is a disgracefully unprofessional organization. Any professional organization asked to commit illegal acts gives up the right to be called professional when it fulfills that request.
What qkslvrwolf would have us do is infantilize the military – he would have us accept “I was only following orders” as a valid defense. This is sick beyond belief and is a rejection of settled questions about the responsibility each person bears for their actions.
As for SLC’s fantasy Iraq scenario – good to hear it was a simple tale of good guys and bad guys. Tell me, did the bad guys wear bad guy hats too? You fucking moron.
There’s a lot more to the story than your idiotic simplification says. The decade of support for Iraq’s aggression is part of it, the illegal acts by Kuwait are part of it, and Bush’s diplomatic ineptitude also plays a role. But good that you admit that, at heart, it was merely a war for oil. Doesn’t make our military look good for fighting yet another imperialist war, but there you go.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
@18: You’re not giving credit for things like the lend-lease program. Which is, essentially, what kept the USSR in the war. Also, I think you need to check your numbers.
http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html
@27: Cut defense industry. That’s the biggest, right there. stop fighting stupid wars is the second biggest. After those two stupidly low hanging fruit, you can talk about personnel costs.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Evil Twin: Do you REALLY want to open the can of the military NOT doing what the elected government of this country tells them to do? I mean, really? I’d like to know a situation in history where the military acting as it’s own unelected branch of government ended well.
And while I agree that the war in Iraq was “illegal, insane, and unsuccessful attempt”, but with congress refusing to play their part in the checks and balances, what makes you think the military should just stand up and refuse orders? Where were the rest of the citizens of the US, when 51% elected GWB again AFTER he started that illegal war? I mean, under what moronic blame game do you want to play here?
“I was only following orders” is a bullshit argument, and I openly cheered Lt. Ehren Watada when he refused to go to Iraq. But the fact of the matter remains that the spectre of a military that decides when it’s going to obey orders and not is a scary, scary thing. I really would like you to cite a historical case of that ending well.
If you want us to stop ridiculous aggression, than you better work harder at creating an engaged citizenry who elects better leaders and stop blaming the military.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
@Skeptic, 37.
While I hate agreeing with SLC, because in the main I think he’s pretty much wrong, I have to disagree with your assessment of the Lend-Lease program.
As a starting point, even though it’s under cited.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Another thought, although I can’t find anything on Weeks to establish his credentials as a source. DAMN!
http://books.google.com/books?id=z3hP33KprskC&dq=lend-lease+ussr&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0
January 6th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10887
A review with a little perspective on that last book…
January 7th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Skeptic,
Good deterrence is like good counter-terrorism in this sense: when it’s successful, skeptics such as yourself can easily claim that there was no threat to begin with, or that the threat was overstated, or that the reason why the threat didn’t lead to war with a major power was because of “our lucky stars”, or some combination of thereof. You can claim that, but I think it strains credulity to think that China wouldn’t have attacked Taiwan, for example, without the deterrent effect of the U.S. military.
One can certainly argue that we spend a disproportionate amount on the military (and that some of our allies ought to carry more of the burden), but it’s disingenuous to blame the U.S. military for us not fighting wars against major powers when the primary mission of the U.S. military is to deter such wars.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:37 am
Disingenuous? Wow, that’s complicated word. I had to look it up. No definition, only a picture with the name “Daveinhackensack” under it. Go figure.
I haven’t actually spoken one way or the other on the issue of deterrence. I do confess I took a course once upon a time on nuclear strategic theory, so I do have some idea of what that complicated word means. It probably doesn’t mean the same as disingenuous.
I’m not prepared to speculate on whether and under what circumstances China would have invaded Taiwan. However, I’ll assume that the Chinese would not have been walking over. So it’s a bit of a puzzler. On the other hand, I am familiar with the controversy over Quemoy and Matsu (sic). Close enough.
While I did not comment on deterrence, I did make a point of commenting on Proxy Wars, and their not turning out so good for the US military. As I said, I can only think of two proxy wars that directly involved the US military. Korea and Vietnam, and they didn’t turn out well.
Things like the overthrow of Mossadegh and Arbenz in the 1950’s, the Pinochet stuff in Chile, that wave of sickdog atrocity that Latin American military pulled, the overthrow of Greek Democracy by the Colonels, Reagan’s Dirty Wars, Angola, Ethiopia, win, lose or draw that was all covert ops, stuff, not the US military.
And since you don’t understand my argument, I’ll make it for you again. The American military does not deliver bang for its buck. Simple, non?
Look, you got a sacred cow, I’m just goring it, okay?
I’m just saying that the sacred cow is overstuffed, overfed, corrupt, far better at hoovering up the Federal budget than actually fighting, and that it’s pretty much not good for much more than smash and grab operations on pissant third world countries… because basically, that’s what it does
January 7th, 2009 at 1:40 am
Quertywolf, thanks for the links. I’ll take a good look at them, and maybe revise some opinions.
As for the rest, don’t take some of the more heated argument too seriously. There’s lots of nasty stuff thrown around, but fundamentally, everyone’s good people and decent enough. It would be nicer if we were all more civil, but what the heck. No matter how obnoxious we get, pretty much everyone, including SLC posts civil and insightful comments now and then.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:18 am
It seems that high ranking U.S. military leaders have successfully warded off an attack on Iran by threatening to resign. That’s the best thing I can think of to say about our military and the past year, except that Obama won (not McCain).
January 7th, 2009 at 4:40 am
Well, I’ve certainly learned something, and I’ll have lots of links to throw at the right-wing friends when I go home for a visit.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Re Skeptic
Mr. Skeptic has joined the 100% wrong club relative to WW II.
1. As regards the Murmansk/Archangel convoys, he is totally incorrect and inaccurate. As a reference, I suggest, “The Naval War Against Hitler,” by Donald MacIntyre, Chapter 6, starting on page 264. Quote: But Russia, caught unprepared, if left to her own resources, would go down in defeat before the splendidly equipped veteran armies of Germany as she had done 23 years before.
2. As regards the supply of munitions to the former Soviet Union. Quote: But, by taking advantage of one great asset, command of the sea, Britain, could, in spite of her own desperate needs, send material help, particularly the two weapons of which Russia was most urgently in need, particularly tanks and aircraft.
So much for Mr. Skeptics’ brushoff of the Murmansk/Archangel convoys.
As regards the issue of the start of strategic bombing of Germany, it actually started up in 1941 before the US entered the war. Unlike the Germans, the British had built up a fleet of 4 engine heavy bombers, the Lancasters, which were far better suited for such a campaign then the 2 engine medium bombers the Germans employed in the Battle of Britain.
One has to be amused by Mr. Skeptics bringing in the issue of labor shortages. On the one hand, Mr. Skeptic claims that labor shortages would have prevented the Germans from increasing their supply of munitions. On the other hand, he claims that bombed out factories could be rebuilt and put back into production. However, these two claims are contradictory. If the Germans had insufficient labor resources to increase production in undestroyed factories, where were they going to get the labor resources to rebuild destroyed factories? Nice try but no cigar.
Furthermore, the major bombing campaign started in mid 1942 and really ramped up heading into in 1943.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Well, I certainly admire your ability to cherry pick quotes in this instance, SLC, and congratulate you for again making more effort than you do on Israel/Palestine issues.
But I’d rather see what Russian historians had to say about it, or some actual assessment of tonnage and its significance to the Russian war effort. The trouble with generalities is that when you dig right down, things aren’t as clear cut.
In any event, so what? Seriously. You only undermine your original argument that ‘if not for the US Military we’d all be speaking german.’
Your revised position seems to be: ‘America helped hold the Russians coat for them while they beat Hitler.’ A subtle distinction, but a distinction nevertheless. First, it acknowledges that it was the Soviets who really beat Hitler. Second, it shifts the meaningful contribution of the United States from military to providing money and materials.
Your emphasis on the importance of the British bombing raids prior to the American entry into the war is also puzzling. It seems to me that if we accept your argument here, we have to give America even less credit. The most crucial aid to the Soviet Union, according to you, would have taken place before America ever even entered the war, while it sat on its hands.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I get this response all the time “you don’t want the military to act on its own” and should have countered it before it was posted, but the post was too long as it was.
This argument conflates the ability not to do something with the ability to do something. I want the military to live up to its obligation not to commit war crimes. The invasion of a non-threatening nation is a war crime. Aggressive war is a war crime. Allowing the military to say no is not the same as allowing the military to decide to act. This isn’t rocket science.
I hadn’t mentioned the other bad actors on the scene – Bush/Cheney/Congress/The American people. I will now. They were wrong. They were evil. In fact, we were evil. Me, you, Matt, SLC and everyone else who didn’t do enough to prevent the slaughter of Iraqis (given that it wasn’t stopped, that pretty much includes everyone). The military was no more evil than the American people. But it is obviously true that there would have been no invasion without the military’s blind obedience.
The solution is a) a more professional military, one that takes the obligation to make war far more seriously than the one we have, and b) a far smaller military, such that it is not a constant threat to world peace.
The history lessons of SLC and Skeptic merely remind us that the bloated and dangerous military we have wasn’t always with us. Prior to WWII it was a much smaller thing. We spend far too much on it and it gets us crappy results – mostly in the form of dead foreigners whose lives had no effect on ours.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:53 am
On Radio Open Source a while ago I think it was either John Mearsheimer or P.J. Crowley, who said that the State Department has no natural constituency, while the Pentagon has a huge one.
When people joked that Scoop Jackson was the “Senator from Boeing,” apparently they really meant it. His constituents were people who were employed by Boeing, executives at Boeing, and even Boeing shareholders.
I wonder if it would be possible to have people like the “Senator from the State Department” with J Street as a constituency? Or the “Senator from Alternative Energy”, with the Alternative Energy business constituency, and even alternative investors and shareholders? I wonder if arrangements like this could be even explicitly organized and coordinated? I mean, I would buy PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy as an investment if I knew I would at least break even, and hopefully do more than that.
I don’t know what the equivalent would be for the State Department. Maybe overseas companies in certain fledgling third world countries? I dunno. Just thinking aloud here. Maybe totally off and naive…
If we could just get progressive equivalents to “the Senator from Boeing,” who was such a friend to institutionalized paranoia…
January 7th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Another possibility is that you could broaden what falls under national defense. Alternative energy is national defense. Research and development into preventing famine is national defense. Etcetera. Because these things are national defense.
This way you’re not cutting defense, but you’re reallotting what defense does. Of course the next GOP administration that comes in can just switch everything back, but at least you’re realigning priorities so funds don’t all get sucked into weapons systems.
But maybe this is done explicitly already, and again I’m just naive…
January 7th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Qkslvrwolf (I take it that’s meant to be Quicksilverwolf?), I took a look at your links and followed up here and there. I thank you for taking the time out to look into this and for presenting a balanced perspective.
I’d like to quote a section of the review you cited:
Counterfactual propositions are, of course, impossible to prove. Weeks might have presented a more persuasive case if he had addressed questions such as how much military equipment was delivered by the fall of 1941, when the Red Army first held off the Wehrmacht outside Moscow. However, instead of developing a sustained argument, Weeks relies on references to Russian scholarship and seven detailed tables of Lend-Lease shipments. Ultimately, Weeks concedes that “the jury is still out” on “establishing exactly how crucial this aid was” (p. 134).
Counterfactual propositions, by nature, are speculative. But they’re useful for testing various propositions, the key is in the increasing level of detail necessary.
Ultimately, on this issue, I’d accept Week’s concession that the jury was still out. Frankly, the whole point of his book was to assert a position, and if he couldn’t fully assert that position, its not a good thing.
On the other hand, its clear from both the book and the Wikipedia link that the lend lease program was far more significant than I had previously believed. Even if the question is whether and how much of a difference it made to the Soviet war effort or Soviet defeat or victory remains open, it’s clear that there was a substantial contribution.
Thanks
January 7th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Great post, I learned a lot!!! Keep up the Great work!!!
January 7th, 2009 at 11:55 am
At the risk of derailing the discussion of the effects of Lend-Lease on the Eastern Front, one thing I’ve not really seen here is a discussion of what we want our military to be able to DO. Any examination of how much money the DoD should get and what it will be spent on ought to start there.
Do you want to deter China from bullying Taiwan or other nearby countries? Or do you think the military should only be big enough to defend the CONUS and Hawaii? Do you want to be able to intervene in the occasional possible genocide, or an actual attack on an allied nation, however unlikely that might be? Or a military capable of going halfway around the world and knocking off a middle-sized nation? A large nation?
These are not idle gotcha questions.
As an aside, size is not usually a predictor of ability to make mischief. I’m sure Evil Twin doesn’t care for the US record in Latin America, for example, but a lot of that stuff was done with fairly small forces.
Aside 2: I never much cared for the moniker of “discretionary” spending. All government spending is discretionary when you get right down to it. All it means in this case is “spending that will happen automatically unless we have the guts to mess with it.”
January 7th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
The military industial complex is a den of theives.
My son has “cronic bronchitis ” because his barracks which had been condemned two years earlier and had mold on the walls.Meanwhile the “retired generals”go off to collect their big payday by working as contractors,lobbiests and “ceos”of the war machine.The troops dont get the best equiptment but we get to pay top dollar for everything.The business model for the military would make bernie maddof blush.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
This is bullshit. The two biggest costs as a percentage of the combined Military budgets are Personnel (meaning the feeding and caring of troops) and Operations (the costs of deploying them). Procurement is actually third, and Research and Development comes in a distant fourth.
That’s why it’s actually kind of hilarious to see think tanks like the Center for American Progress talk about gutting virtually the entire modernization progress for the US Military and bragging about saving $38 billion in the process. $38 billion – versus a combined military budget of more than $500 billion.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
That’s quite an interesting assertion Brett. It strikes me as counterintuitive for two reasons:
First, although the size of the United States military budget has increased dramatically under Bush’s eight years from about 285 billion to over 500 billion, it’s my understanding that the size of the Armed forces in terms of manpower has not increased more than incrementally, less than 10%, if at all. So where’s the extra money going?
Second, it’s clearly not going to deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, since the funding for those wars is not part of the conventional military budget of over $500 billion, but rather comes from special emergency appropriations.
Can you explain this? Care to put up some links?
January 7th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
@Evil Twin, 52: Much more rational argument, thank you.
I disagree that allowing the military to say no is different than letting it dictate where we go.
“General, stop blackwater from taking over new orleans.”
“No. They’re american citizens, I don’t believe that I have the authority to shoot them. It’s a law-enforcement issue and I won’t get involved.”
…and we can go back and forth ad nauseum. However, the simple fact is that the military MUST remain an INSTRUMENT of policy, not a policy maker. It is a two edged sword and can only effectively exist when it is so. It SHOULD have dangers, because want the American people to think about how we use them. It was our failure as citizens that let us go to Iraq. All of us…including military members, but military members as citizens.
I actually very much agree with the smaller military, and DEFINITELY much smaller military industrial complex. However, I think that everyone who wants full citizenship should have to go through about 3 months of military training, followed by a two year stint in some kind of service. CCC, Americorp, peace corp, teaching, I don’t care. You ought to pay a significant tax penalty if you haven’t done service to the country. That’s a significant digression, I guess. I’m also all about the draft, because it ENSURES that Americans will pay more attention to where we send our troops.
So yeah, we don’t need the big military we have right now. Look at the bright side…I think it’s much smaller than it was under Reagan. And the Air Force, at least, has cut back significantly since 2001. I know, because I got to get out really early because of the cuts.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
@jj, 54: Errrmm..I worry about that. Just because defense contractors are evil bastards, and they’re the ones that would get in on that. Do you really want halliburtan trying to run clean energy? {shudder}
January 7th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
@Jammer, 57. VERY good questions.
If I recall my doctrine correctly from ASBC and OTS, our stated military goal right now is to be able to fight two wars at once, win one of them (quickly), and project power globally to be able to defend world wide american interests. Take all this with a grain of salt…I’m not looking it up and my last doctrine test was 4 years ago, so the memory has been dumped.
Now, what’s funny is that, especially after Vietnam, the lessons learned were supposed to be to not get involved in nation building, with lots of caveates about that being a political enterprise and not a military one. Bush was never very good at listening to generals, which is part of the extremely depressing irony about military support for his evil ass. It finally started waining around 2006*, but somehow they decided only republicans are good for the military, and only started waking up recently.
Departing into opinion, I’d say that somewhere between the current bullshit and “just defending conus/hawaii” should be our aim. I’d like to have enough military that folks worry about “waking the sleeping giant”, but not so much as blood-thirsty wanna be tyrants with a hard on for size competitiosn gets wild ideas about “throwing some little country against the wall just to keep the others in line” have the option. I’d also like to see us open a uniformed service DEDICATED to peace-keeping, and make it about the size of the marine corp. Less guns, more consensus building, culture, languages, etc. Then try and get NATO and the UN to follow suit. Pure speculation here, of course.
———————
*Anecdotal, from my experience.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
@Skeptic. Don’t forget the billions lost – literally – in Iraq.
Yeah, all that budget has been soaked up by defense contractors, and it is a racket. It’s impossible to get fired, the government pays 2-3 times the salary of the position to the company, and most of that lines the pockets of the CEOs. Trust me, I know. I’m a defense contractor. (I’m a unix sysadmin..if anyone wants to offer me a non-evil job @80k/year I would LOVE to take it), but we blow more money on stupid shit than you could possibly believe.
And I would love to start going on about how bad the military is at IT, and how much money is wasted, but it’s getting on towards bed time.
Finally, truthyness lover, more or less, you’ve nailed it. It is the countries second biggest racket. (The financial market, I think, was actually bigger.)
January 8th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Say what you will about wallstreet at least they dont walk over the dead and wounded bodies of their fellow servicemen for a paycheck.
“In the history of the Iraq War, one name is perhaps synonymous with the collapse of the Bush administration’s hopes for a post-Saddam world: Retired Lt. General Jay M. Garner. It was Garner who served as the first post-war administrator for Iraq, running the country during the fateful two months immediately following the invasion before being replaced by L. Paul Bremer III.
“However, Garner’s frustrating tenure in Iraq wasn’t entirely wasted. This year, he and a small group of former US military leaders, officials, and lobbyists have quietly used their deep connections in Kurdistan to help Canadian companies access some of the region’s richest oil fields….
“As for Garner, the success of the Vast deal has evidently encouraged him and his associates to pursue more opportunities in Iraq. He and Hite are on the board of Eurocontrol, a company that designs oil theft technology. Eurocontrol’s CEO, Bruce Rowlands, says the company is exploring opportunities in Iraq, and that Garner and Hite are helping to facilitate contracts there. Garner and Hite’s ability to interpret Iraq’s ‘political sub-plots’ and their understanding of the ‘U.S. industrial military complex’ is, Rowlands says, ‘invaluable.’”
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