Gates: Defense Pork Proponents Hurt the Troops
Noah Schachtman offers up some wise thoughts from Robert Gates:
“The grim reality is that with regard to the budget we have entered a zero-sum game. Every defense dollar diverted to fund excess or unneeded capacity… is a dollar that will be unavailable to take care of our people, to win the wars we are in, to deter potential adversaries, and to improve capabilities in areas where America is underinvested and potentially vulnerable. That is a risk that I will not take and one that I cannot accept,” he said.
Gates took particular aim at proponents of the futuristic, $250 million-a-pop F-22 stealth dogfighter. Senior military leaders all say they have plenty of the planes, to ward off any potential foe. Congress keeps trying to force the Pentagon to pay for more — despite the threat of a Presidential veto of any defense bill which contains more F-22 cash. It’s typical, he observed, of a Beltway process that keeps defense programs going forever, regardless of their military value. It’s exactly why Gates’ largely common sense overhaul of the Pentagon’s arsenal is, in its own way, so radical.
This is fundamentally what the F-22 debate is all about. Barack Obama and Robert Gates are trying to bring an end to years of magical thinking about defense spending. George Bush took a federal budget that was in short-term equilibrium but facing large long-term deficits, and decided that the thing to do was to cut taxes dramatically and simultaneously scale up defense spending. Ronald Reagan did the same thing. That’s conservative governance. But in the real world, you have to make decisions. If the country is going to fix its budgetary problems then the Pentagon is going to have to live on a budget. That means choices have to be made.
30 Responses to “Gates: Defense Pork Proponents Hurt the Troops”
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July 17th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I know people didn’t like picking Gates because of the “why can’t Democrats do defense?” perception, but the guy is proving very tough and effective on this issue.
July 17th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I wonder if touchy-feely town hall politics would work for this?
“…and we have here with us, where are you Kathy? Sergeant Kathy Doe from Lake West, Michigan. Kathy is an anti-aircraft operator with the First Infantry Division. Now, there are these things called offsets. When Congress spends the Army’s money on things for the Air Force that the Air Force says it doesn’t need, we need to have offsets in the budgets. One of the offsets for the F-22 is going to be a slowdown in the purchasing of body armor…
“Gasp!”
“…That’s right. Kathy’s company, instead of getting new body armor in November 2009, would get it in April 2012.”
“No!”
“Folks, there’s no free lunch…”
July 17th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Bipartisanship!
July 17th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
“Defense” spending in and by the US is positively ridiculous, and has been since the end of the Second World War. As American industrialist (CEO of GE) and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson put it, in 1944: “The revulsion against war … will be an almost insuperable obstacle for us to overcome. For that reason, I am convinced that we must begin now to set the machinery in motion for a permanent wartime economy.”
‘They’ got it done, and now we spend the better part of a trillion per year on what? Defense? Don’t make me laugh!
July 17th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Hm…what if we clip this quote:
Works for me. Especially when you consider the size of our “defense” budget.
July 17th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
You know, we do spend a ridiculous amount of money on the military. That’s an important point.
It is, however, a different point than the one raised by the F-22 debate, which is also an important point, and one that deserves to be considered itself.
I think we liberals should make the effort to walk and chew gum at the same time. Make the argument for big, structural defense cuts, but also apply liberal, progressive, reality-based thinking towards the budgeting and operations of this big federal department. In fact, an ability to think in this dimension helps people who want to “only” spent a trillion dollars on the military every three or so years, instead of every two, (aka, cut something like $200 billion annually) make that case more effectively.
July 17th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I think this is way, way too generous to Obama. I mean, he’s proposing no reversal of increases in defense spending, and indeed no one in the “mainstream” is doing so. Just because he’s going to bat over a couple of F-22s doesn’t mean he’s “bringing an end to years of magical thinking about defense spending.”
July 17th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Marshall, if you look at the proposed spending (the administration’s preferred version), they’re _really_ close to flat in real terms… if you exclude operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they’re making strides in actually putting things in the correct category (budget vs. supplemental)
July 17th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
It would be nice of the Dept of Defense to bring it’s mission
ore in line with its name. American airspace could be perfectly well defended by F-4 phantoms.
July 17th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
TJ: “Flat” is a beautifully relative term, isn’t it?
July 17th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I suggest we reduce our budget for defense including homeland security, hidden defense projects, etc to the equivalent percent of gdb that the NATO countries spend. Or perhaps NATO spends per capita. And then take the difference to lower the coverage age of medicare to 1 year olds and above and secure the solvency of Social Security into the year 2100. Spending 1 trillion dollars a year to try to make ourselves safe from the miniscule threat of Al Qaeda is hannity insanity and/or beck beserko and/or limbaugh lunacy.
July 17th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
While it is terribly sad that applying even the most basic cost/benefit analysis to military spending is a major step, it is true. This is something I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about and discussing, and I really believe that basically reasonable people can be brought around to a rational position on military spending if you make them think about it. I don’t think it’s the huge third rail that everyone seems to assume it is.
When people are being told that we can’ afford a $200B/year health care plan, they are open to the idea that we can’t afford a $500B/year military program.
July 17th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
All right, what the hell, let’s just chew gum:
ELEVEN carrier battle groups. ELEVEN.
What the hell? I’ll spot you four…then double that. We need three more than THAT?!?
Do you know how many carrier battle groups the rest of the world has right now?
NONE! They don’t have any!
July 17th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Joe, sounds like is also an issue you feel strongly about, do you have any good “neutral” (in the actually good information sense, not the artificial right/left balance sense) sources of breakdown and analysis of current military spending and programs. This is an issue that I feel like “I’ve just got to be right about,” but I have to admit that I don’t have any official education in. It’s amazing the lack of scholarly analysis on this compared to say health care economics (which I’ve taken graduate classes in and read many serious publications on).
Thanks,
Randolph
July 17th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
See, Matt, spending tax dollars on unnecessary make-work defense projects to keep one’s constituents happily employed is a healthy American value, while spending tax dollars on necessary health-care reform that actually saves lives is socialism (not to mention, teh gay).
July 18th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Funny how “senior military leaders” doesn’t apparently include the Air Force leadership, who want the planes.
This statement is bullshit, too – the current order won’t even be enough to make it profitable to manufacture the spare parts for a reasonable price, so expect them to eventually have part of the fleet cannibalized so that the others can fly.
“Common sense” my ass. Gates wants to spend more money to expand the Army and Marines as well as COIN capabilities, because even though it is extremely unlikely that the US is going to fall into another Iraq-style nation-building exercise (for one thing, the cost is brutal), it’s apparently important that we have those capabilities because the future leadership might be too stupid to avoid falling into a war like that.
And replace it with some of their own. You know what the two biggest expenses, by far, are in the military? Operations and Personnel. You want to actually rein in the defense budget, get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and cut enlisted personnel in terms of numbers. This type of piddling shit (Obama somehow finds hundreds of billions for his stimulus but can’t be arsed to pay less than two billion to keep the F-22 fleet worthwhile) won’t solve the problem.
The Pentagon is a much, much smaller fraction of the budget (and slower growing) than the real expenses, which are the entitlement programs.
You want to know how to drastically cut the budget? Look at our commitments. The US military budget is high because
A. We’re involved in two massive operations (Iraq and Afghanistan), both at the end of long supply chains, and as I mentioned above, Operations is the largest expense in the military.
B. We have a whole host of defense commitments, like that of NATO, Japan, Korea, Australia, etc. In order for us to meaningfully fulfill those commitments, we need the ability to project power world-wide.
C. We want to have “flexible response” in responding to threats, meaning that we can choose a certain level of military response to a certain level of threat, and minimize civilian casualties in the process.
For example, if you really wanted to cut the budget while maintaining homeland defense, you would gut the Army down to a small force of full-timers with a large reserve base (and a stockpile of equipment), pull back from a number of bases worldwide, cut the carrier fleet down to the point where it is basically a launching platform for very limited intervention and air strikes, and then build a fleet of strategic bombers as well as Continental Air Defense. Then sit back on your laurels, assured of your ability to annihilate any country that seriously threatened a strategic American interest. The capital expenses would be high in the short-term, but after that you’d have long periods where the operating costs would be dirt-cheap.
You’re being sarcastic, right?
July 18th, 2009 at 2:26 am
[...] That bore repeating. And that is politically radical, as Matthew Yglesias notes: [...]
July 18th, 2009 at 3:10 am
Obama is also cancelling the robot tank built in the shape of a dragon project. (video: ONN)
July 18th, 2009 at 3:29 am
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July 18th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Randolph,
I’m afraid I don’t know of a good comprehensive source, either. I just pick up what I can, here and there.
July 18th, 2009 at 10:39 am
We have a whole host of defense commitments, like that of NATO, Japan, Korea, Australia, etc. In order for us to meaningfully fulfill those commitments, we need the ability to project power world-wide.
None of those defense commitments have any real value to the US.
The US could pull out of Japan and South Korea and leave the policing of North Korea to those counties and to China. The difference? Not much.
NATO is a treaty obligation which has become pointless since the Russians are extremely unlikely to mount a westward assault anytime this century. Hence NATO’s search for a role outside of Europe.
The US has no defense commitment to Australia at all. The ANZUS Treaty does not require any military response at all on the part of the US, it is consultatory only.
There are only two reasons that America could need to project power across the globe. Fistly, to maintain the flow of oil from the Middle East. Secondly, to contain China.
Technology should make the first unnecessary, politics and trade make the second absurd.
The US maintains as many defense commitments as it wants, not as it needs.
July 18th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Well, precisely because of our budgetary problems, the choices are going to be made by our creditors, i.e., the Chinese and – to a lesser extent – the Japanese and the Arabs.
A cynic might argue that it is in their interest that we continue to degrade our position with F-22-type projects and that this explains their laxness in supervising us so far.
In case anybody is wondering why Congress is so unresponsive to popular will, campaign contributions are only half the answer. The other half is that Congress is spending borrowed rather than taxed dollars. So it can get away with a lot more.
Increasingly, the Federal Government is coming across as a second-rate blockbuster movie production. Overfunded, unimaginative, relying on special effects, and risk adverse. One of the later Star Wars episodes, feeding off the accomplishments of the first two episodes, contributing nothing.
July 18th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
You mean aside from the following arms buildup and (probably) nuclear weapons acquisition on the part of the South Koreans and Japanese? That’s potentially de-stabilizing, particularly since everyone else is afraid of the Japanese seriously re-arming in that area.
Moreover, we’d be dependent on their good graces to operate in the region.
I agree. Personally, I’d rather scale our NATO commitment back to a bare “We’ll retaliate with nuclear weapons if a major land invasion takes place in Europe”, and let the Europeans figure out their own security arrangements. After that, you could probably get away with simply having an airbase there with some strategic bombers.
Trade doesn’t prevent wars from occurring. 1913 was the highest year in terms of volume of trade until the 1990s – and then next year, the world went to war, and the whole thing came crashing down.
July 18th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
NATO keeps the US, Britain, France, Germany and all of the rest of the European powers in the same tent.
Russia Shmussia. If NATO prevents wars between the continental European powers, which we would inevitably be dragged into, then it serves an important purpose for our security.
July 18th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I’m trying to figure out how the F22 isn’t already obsolete.
It’s a manned aircraft so it’s going to have limitations on speed and performance that are based on man’s limitations. I understand that there will be limits to unmanned missions as well, but which pathway seems more evolved in this case?
Missiles and or lasers are the cheaper focus as far as air superiority goes, so focusing on the aircraft kind of strikes me as debating whether to do a drive-by with a sniper rifle in Camry or a Ferrari.
How does it fare in ground support?
I agree with the sentiment that we need to avoid the trap of building and planning based on that last war we fought, but a manned air superiority fighter strikes me as somewhat out-dated conceptually.
July 18th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Is Gates Obama’s best pick so far?
Geithner looks a bit lost and Summers is M.I.A.
July 18th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Until you get to the point where the unmanned fighters can more or less pilot themselves without any ground assistance or communication (as of now, without ground communication a UAV is basically a more expensive, reusable cruise missile), I’m going to favor the manned fighters. One thing people tend to forget about UAVs is the degree of bandwidth they take, and that they rely heavily on unconstricted communication between the controller and the drone. That’s not a problem when the best equipment your opponent has is AK-47s and IEDs, but what about when you meet up against a force that can and will try to jam it?
It’s almost rather amusing that Gates brings up the significance of the UAV purchase, because earlier he had talked about how the peer competitors were focusing on “asymmetric” attacks, presumably including information warfare against the networks necessary to operate UAVs.
Missiles are cheap but can be shot down, lasers are more expensive and bulky.
It’s an air superiority fighter, so it doesn’t directly do air-to-ground missions. Of course, having uncontested control of the skies tends to be highly important in modern warfare, and the F-22 can also go after missiles (you know, those types of missiles that Gates is warning about China developing).
July 18th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
I’m trying to figure out how the F22 isn’t already obsolete.
It’s a manned aircraft so it’s going to have limitations on speed and performance that are based on man’s limitations. I understand that there will be limits to unmanned missions as well, but which pathway seems more evolved in this case?
Missiles and or lasers are the cheaper focus as far as air superiority goes, so focusing on the aircraft kind of strikes me as debating whether to do a drive-by with a sniper rifle in Camry or a Ferrari.
I don’t know why so many people are willing to bet the farm on a largely unproven technology. UAV’s have been successful in surveillance and blowing up some single targets in areas with zero air defence or in areas where air defenses were cooperating with the people operating drones. That’s a million miles away from proving that unmanned fighter jets can operate in a war zone with everyone gunning for them while completing a mission.
I’m not a technophobe, but you don’t throw away years of development on what works with what is a “good bet” might work because there’s a general feeling that it’s the “wave of the future”.
July 19th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I think you might find that people whose job depended on the F-22 would believe that a combat infantryman needed an F-22 more than he needs body armor.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:55 am
[...] Gates: Wasteful Defense Spending Hurts Troops Secretary of Defense Robert Gates makes an excellent point about the pork projects included in defense spending: “The grim reality is that with regard to [...]