John Cornyn’s Defense Budget Fearmongering
Robert Gates reform-oriented defense budget would mean less money for some defense contractors and fewer jobs in the districts of some members of congress. Under the circumstances, I’m not surprised that it’s being met with some skepticism. That said, the idea that the Gates/Obama budget would somehow leave us “unprepared” for conventional war is just silly:
Others, like Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, cite the threats posed by nations around the world that remain true adversaries — or at least are competitors to American interests.
In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy center in Washington, Mr. Cornyn said that China was upgrading and expanding its navy to challenge American warships, that Russia was striving to intimidate its neighbors and re-establish a sphere of influence, and that North Korea and Iran continued to expand their missile arsenals while pursuing nuclear weapons.
Time again to take a look at US defense spending in context:
If we decided to take the threats Cornyn names seriously and spend double the combined budgets of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran then that would imply large cuts in our current levels of spending. And keep in mind that under such a scenario we’d still be able to call on allies such as South Korea, Japan, and our friends in NATO. The west would still have an overwhelming preponderance of military power.
It’s true, as Cornyn says, that we still face international security problems. But it’s not because we’re not spending enough on defense. It’s because we face problems we can’t solve with more defense spending.
36 Responses to “John Cornyn’s Defense Budget Fearmongering”
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May 11th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
But what about the doomsday gap!
May 11th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
that 420B really is not even close to what we actually spend on “defense”. for one thing, the base DoD budget is up to $515B in 2009. and that doesn’t include any of our current wars, anything related to nukes (DoE handles that), Veteran’s affairs, all that “training” the State Department handles, etc..
we easily spend $1T every fucking year on “defense”.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
At some point I wish we’d see a chart of these countries and not their published defense expenditure. but the actual number of divisions they can field, or some other metric that actually expresses the state’s actual military power (how many points it would be worth in Risk, I guess). North Korea has an eency defense budget, but they have 8 million people active and reserve — The US only has 2.2 million. Of course the US has a much more technology available, but how much that helps, Iraq and Afghanistan show, really depends on the dynamics of the particular conflict you’re engaging in.
Gates’s reforms are very important to address this, but I don’t think comparing national budgets is a tight argument for increasing or decreasing defense spending per se.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I initially read the headline as “John Connor’s Defense Budget Fearmongering”, much more entertaining.
That’s the great thing about the defense budget. At this point it’s so big, and production is so distributed, that virtually any cut is going to piss of a fair number of congresscritters.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
And the amusing thing is that those people critical of any cuts in defense spending are screaming bloody murder about the amount of deficits the government is running.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Where’d you get that graph? It looks woefully out of date.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
So why doesn’t someone smack the living shit out of Senator John Cornyn on public TV? Point out that his extreme whoring for defense contractors is damaging National Security.
Because last time I checked, swine flu is still exploding at an exponential rate — as I predicted a week ago. If it continues, we will have 100 million cases by mid-June — and we don’t have the healthcare facilities to care for high risk patients (diabetics, asthma patients,etc.) because the damm Republicans have hamstrung healthcare reform and spending for the last 14 years.
The reporters assuring us that the flu will abate with the onset of summer are full of shit. The number of cases in Arizona has grown from around 17 to over 180 in the past week — and temperatures there are around 100 degree Fahrenheit.
But the US Government can’t institute robust quarantine measures as Mexico did because — after 14 years of Republican corruption, incompetence, and pig stupidity — our economy is on the verge of collapse and business shutdowns might send it over the cliff. Our major banks are already on ventilators in the Intensive Care Unit.
Why is there NOT a single fucking Democratic leader who will stand up and tell Cornyn , Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh to shut the fuck up. Because their whoring for the rich has already damaged the country enough.
Anyone want to guess what happens if this flu spreads among 1 billion plus Chinese and starts mixing with deadly avian flu?
May 11th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Re iluvcapra at 3: “North Korea has an eency defense budget, but they have 8 million people active and reserve — The US only has 2.2 million.”
—————
And how are those 8 million North Koreans going to attack the USA — swim the Pacific Ocean?
James Dunnigan has published books for years (How to Make War,etc) showing that the USA has an outsized advantage in conventional military power on land. And most of the other major military powers are our NATO allies.
Our superiority in naval power and power projection is even more outsized. In contrast, Most nations can only fight within their own boundaries.
So why doesn’t any Democratic leader point this out when the Republicans whore for the Defense Industry?
May 11th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
iluvcapra sort of makes a similar point to the one I would make, insofar as a direct spending-to-spending comparison may be misleading. But I would argue that the reason for this is that the U.S. Department of Defense is one of the most inefficient and wasteful bureaucracies on the planet. The Pentagon spends tens of billions of dollars every year on nothing.
Unfortunately, I have no idea at all about the spending efficiencies of the Chinese or Russian militaries, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if each were able to do more with less than DoD.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Gates’s reforms are very important to address this, but I don’t think comparing national budgets is a tight argument for increasing or decreasing defense spending per se.
It’s far more objective than what you’re suggesting. Just counting guys in helmets tells us little about a given military’s level of lethality, effectiveness and ability to project power — all of which flow largely from the resources available for technology, training, and leadership.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Yes, before the 1st Gulf War, I remember it being said that Iraq had the 4th largest army in the world. According to Wikipedia, they had over half a million troops and nearly 5,000 tanks. Looked good on paper, but they weren’t very effective.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Let’s be plain- this is not defense spending. It’s war spending. And all of it over the past half century hasn’t made us any safer.
As for those who would like to come up with some other metric to ‘prove’ there might be a dangerous enemy out there- baloney. How are they going to get here?
For that matter, if North Korea had the ability to invade us, why wouldn’t they just invade China? China spends a fraction of what we do on war, and North Korea would save all the expenses of building an invasion fleet if they simply looked to the south.
Like the crazy guy who collects guns, the war spending has made us the most cowardly people on earth- and the country nobody particularly wants to conquer.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
The last time I checked, the Chinese and Russians had not let a defense contractor piss away $6 Billion before deciding that the Defense Contractor was incapable to building the satellites it had contracted to build.
Wonder what would have happened to Jane Harman if she had been a CHINESE official?
May 11th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
cleek is right @2. Imagine. If we could cut total “real” defense spending to $500 billion we would save $500 billion per year!
In four years, if my math correct, we could put $2 trillion dollars in the bank, in the People’s Bank of the United States that is.
We would have so much money in ten years that the government could build a personal bullet train for every American!
May 11th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
And how are those 8 million North Koreans going to attack the USA — swim the Pacific Ocean?
Well, they can walk to South Korea. But that doesn’t say much about their effectiveness when they get there (or even whether they will complete the trip without being bombarded by cruise missiles or something; modern high-tech warfare can move *fast*, and 8 million people moving in the same direction are basically impossible to hide from spy planes and satellites.)
For that matter, how much of the army could they really march *anywhere* without facing a revolution when dissidents realize the army isn’t around to stop them? North Korea doesn’t have what you’d call a robust political system. If a lot of the army is routinely serving as a police force then they can’t *stop* serving as a police force without unleashing a crime wave and/or revolution.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
No, we’d probably swim the ocean to fight them, because we’ve put ourselves on the big hook of defending South Korea. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it’s not very practical to say that we don’t have to worry about the size of the NK ground army because they’re so far away. The US presently has an obligation to fight it if it ever decides to pick a fight with South Korea or Japan.
The real question is why are Japan and South Korea expecting the US to help foot the bill for helping defend their territorial integrity. And if you go around like I suppose Cornyn is saying, and presuming that all the freedom-loving nations of the Earth must be defended with American arms, then our budget and our forces do indeed look insufficient to the task. But that goal is crazy.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
North Korea doesn’t have fuel to march far, unless they’re really going to march the whole way.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
“unless they’re really going to march the whole way”
I’m not sure they have the rice to march the whole way. They already rely on food donations to feed themselves. If they tried to invade the South, I’d guess those donations would stop.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Re iluvcapra at 16: “The US presently has an obligation to fight it[North Korea] if it ever decides to pick a fight with South Korea or Japan.”
—————
Fuck South Korea. And Japan as well.
Shouldn’t they be sending us wheelbarrows of Gold or something?
Instead, WE spend a shitload of money to protect them. Money which we don’t have. So then we have to borrow huge sums from them and the clever little fuckers charge us interest.
This looks almost as fucked up as our relationship with Israel.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
John Cornyn has to be metal. We even fielded an Iraq War vet last year and we still lost big. It’s either that or I’m surrounded by a mega-state full of ignorant yokels.
At least I’ll be able to get some sleep if there’s a Terminator in Congress.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
fostert Says: I’m not sure they have the rice to march the whole way. They already rely on food donations to feed themselves. If they tried to invade the South, I’d guess those donations would stop
Hell, those “citizen soldiers” would probably just defect the minute they crossed the border. Find some extended family in South Korea and sit down for a good meal.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I’d like to see a poll of the form:
1) Please list the countries which you think the US might potentially go to war with. (You can give a list to select from)
2) How much do you think the US spends on defense compared with all those countries combined?
3) How much do you think the US should spend on defense compared with all those countries combined?
May 11th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
A large part of this is likely an artifact of U.S. personnel being paid much more than Chinese or Russian personnel. How much would this graph change if we treated the salaries of personnel in other countries as equal to U.S. salaries? We’d still be ahead, I’m sure, but how much less stark would the difference be?
May 11th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I have it! I have figured it out! This is how we get a form of socialized medicine while shutting up the Conservatives. It’s sooo simple. Follow with me here.
We turn the whole budget over to the military. All of it. No more Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security necessary. No other services. We fund the military only. Nothing else. The military can then employ the whole country, building planes and bombs, etc., and could at the same time provide all of these employees of the military industrial complex with health insurance and benefits.
Then we can cut taxes.
Problems solved.
May 11th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
That’s either madness or Sparta.
May 11th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
@ serial catowner.
I keep having this image in my mind when it comes to the GWOT and the hysterical idea that somehow the terrorists are gonna “take us over” and “destroy our way of life” of OBL and his men crossing the ocean in canoes and then storming the beaches of Malibu with 300 RPGs and the rifles they brought with them. All the AQ members, attacking us and trying to take us over, and all of them being stopped by the Malibu police. Why Malibu? Not sure.
And then I laugh.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
It always seems to me these “spending compared to other countries” graphs try to show more data than they do. The US military is the largest domestic employer. As has been pointed out, they have millions of people on their payroll, not to mention the spouses, children, and retirees that are also paid and cared for. While there’s certainly billions going to aircrafts and missile defense and whatever else, I’d be curious to see how much of the budget could realistically be on the chopping block. (And, full disclosure, I’m a military spouse who depends on the DoD for my housing, healthcare, and on and on, and I will raise holy hell if personnel benefits get cut, as I’m sure most other military families would as well).
May 11th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
No comment and Sara,
I’m willing to bet that very little of the military budget has to do with paying active duty and retiree benefits.
Check out the price of a fighter plane, a tank, a missile, etc…
May 11th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
It’s probably about a third to half goes to labor costs.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
[...] the second largest military budget in the world is less than 20% of ours. As Matthew Yglesias concluded today: “It’s true… that we still face international security problems. But it’s not [...]
May 12th, 2009 at 12:03 am
I like the subtle poke at the Francophobes in the graph.
May 12th, 2009 at 2:49 am
re: Military personnel On a yearly basis, we spend more paying off just the interest on debt accrued from military spending than we spend on military personnel.
Essentially, we have paid the Chinese hundreds of billions of dollars in interest payments so that we can debt finance the construction of a super expensive high-tech force capable of defeating the Chinese in conventional battle. Brilliant!
The silly Chinese actually read their ancient philosopher Sun-tzu and attach weight to his perceived wisdom. Somehow they believe, get this, that one of quotes has relevance to modern Great Power relations: “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” How goofy is that?
May 12th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Sun Tzu had a couple of other insights that they don’t seem to recognize on Capitol Hill:
“No nation has ever benefited from protracted warfare.”
————–
“A nation can be impoverished by the army when it has to supply the army at great distances.
When provisions are transported at great distances, the citizens will be impoverished. ?
Those in proximity to the army will sell goods at high prices.
When goods are expensive, the citizens’ wealth will be exhausted.
When their wealth is exhausted, the peasantry will be afflicted with increased taxes. ?
When all strength has been exhausted and resources depleted, all houses in the central plains utterly impoverished, seven-tenths of the citizens’ wealth dissipated, ”
————-
“When weapons are blunted, and ardor dampened, strength exhausted, and resources depleted, the neighboring rulers will take advantage of these complications.”
May 12th, 2009 at 9:08 am
A couple of questions:
1) Why is France on this list alongside comparable ‘opponents’ on the global stage? Aren’t they in theory on ‘our’ side? And if not, wouldn’t they surrender anyways? I know, cheap shot, but still…
2) If North Korea is really that poor, why doesn’t the US military take .5 percent of its budget to outright bribe the North Korean military to switch sides? Three weeks later, a unified Korea! Done and done.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:15 am
[...] I know the United States spends a ton of money on national defense, but I’m a visually oriented type who doesn’t really understand stuff like this lest it is put into color-coded bar graph form, so I thank blogger Matthew Yglesias for this chart re: U.S. military spending: [...]
May 12th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
[...] As for comparing defense spending in 2016 to 1930 as a function of GDP — well, let’s just say that your average eighth grade could probably explain why that’s silly. But I will use this graph which I’ve stolen from Yglesias: [...]