I think one of the central tenets of progressivism is that the United States government spends too much on the military. This isn’t necessarily a critique of having the largest, best equipped military in the world, nor is it at all a criticism of how much soldiers are payed or how veteran’s are cared for. Some progressives would like to see America start rolling back our forward-leaning foreign military basing strategy. Others are even more demanding in their desire to see a demilitarization of our foreign policy. Opinions on the left vary, but one thing that is consistent is a suspicion that when it comes time to make hard decisions on our long-term structural budget deficits that people’s Social Security and Medicare deficits will be cut, while the Pentagon’s budget will go untouched. Part of the progressive frustration with the health care debate is that we spend so much more on the military than other countries and then are told that we can’t afford the kind of universal systems of health care enjoyed by every other industrialized nation. Progressives don’t want deficit spending except as a scientifically applied short-term stimulus. With an ever diminishing discretionary budget, the last thing we need is more debt to service that is wasted money.
So, it’s understandable that Obama is announcing some serious efforts to rein in the budget, and it’s good politics at a time that we’re raising the debt ceiling. And it’s bad politics to announce cutting military spending on a day that we’ve launched a major offensive in Afghanistan. I understand that. But the military’s budget absolutely has to be part of the conversation for any commission that looks at our budget problems, and our wars in Asia should not be exempt from PAYGO.
Obama campaigned partly on his intention to significantly increase both the size and the budget of the military (so did Hillary Clinton). That is one of the reasons I could not vote for either of them in the primary. Since taking office he has announced his intention to increase the military budget. Somehow that does not fit with the notion that it is just that it is just that it’s bad timing right now to announce military spending cuts.
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Hughes Global Explorer or CIA’s Project Azorian. Btw, here also involvement of Rumsfeld.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."After reading your link, I kinda like the idea of shrinking the town-sized compounds in Germany, Japan, etc., and creating hot-spot smaller bases in areas where their presence can offer stability and boost the economy in their immediate vicinity. I especially like the short rotations and personnel being kept on base, not roaming the area looking menacing or getting drunk in the nearest town. Giving better than local wages to some of the natives is a smart goodwill gesture, too.
Cutting the military budget shouldn’t start from the ground up by eliminating the overall size of our troops at home or globally. It should cut the trillions from the top that get thrown at irrelevant weapons systems and bloated contracts with private corporations. Instead of Haliburton providing services, a new class of non-combat support personnel could be employed. Cutting out the middleman and directly hiring truck drivers, construction and sanitation workers would save billions.
a new class of non-combat support personnel
Not new. Back in the day it was us. Still think uniformed military or federal employees are the better way to go. So does Gates:
I do know soldiers used to do the “grunt” work. I believe we’re both thinking in the same direction…
It would be a new classification if it allows someone to enlist (sign a contract for a set term of years) to specifically provide non-combat support services as a member of the military. While some positions might require a level of physical heartiness, these military/federal employees would not go thru boot camp; they would not be trained in the use of weapons. They would be trained for tech support, to be truck drivers, plumbers, electricians and so forth. If their support work put them in a war zone, they would have soldiers to protect them.
In other words, the military needs to stop out-sourcing and bring all the work in-house.
Every member of this kind of “class” must be trained in weapons use for the simple reason that in the event of some kind of massed attack, they can defend their position if called upon to do so.
If they’re ambushed in the open, what happens to them if their soldier protection is taken out? Do they just surrender and be taken prisoner? The enemy won’t see them as “support” troops not meant for combat.
Hmm, I dunno. I was a paperwork guy (PN3, USN, 1991-2001) but I thought my military training was pretty valuable. I can certainly see some servicepeople then transferring to doing some less stressful service, but I’d like to keep everybody in the service fully trained. Remember, it wasn’t very often at all, the number of times could be counted on one hand, but cooks and drivers did have to be pressed into an actual fighting capacity during World War II for the occasional emergency.
We don’t really NEED 500 bases world-wide.
It strikes me that Obama could use the GOP’s hysterical concern about the deficit to our political advantage and the benefit of the country. He’s already turned the R’s willingness to turn on a dime against them in several cases (but not nearly loudly enough or effective enough).
Propose a base closing commission for foreign bases with a targeted savings amount like the domestic commission. Give them a “quick” deadline– say nine months.
Initiate a special unit for Medicare fraud with a high profile leader. Be aggressive. Offer rewards. Publicize it widely.
He’s really going to have to push the R’s with public opinion. He’s likely to be playing with an opposition majority in the Senate (if not both houses) after the elections.
It’s not just the military budget. It’s the BLACK budget.
Do you know that in 1960, before Kennedy was inaugurated, the CIA asked for and got from Eisenhower’s team an addition $28 million for the upcoming Bay of Pigs operation? In today’s dollars, that’s over $200,000,000. And that was just one operation.
I read recently that – in I think 2004 – the CIA’s black budget was triple that of the DoD’s budget.
So when we talk about cutting back the military – let’s go after the things we shouldn’t even be funding in the first place.
The CIA’s largest expenditure, historically, have been its electioneering operations, btw. Most people don’t realize the extent and resources dedicated to changing the outcome of elections in foreign countries so they’d be amenable to American business interests. (And I don’t believe if they did it abroad that they didn’t try it at home as well.)
So let’s go after some really big fish, for a change.
Thank you. You are the first person that has said that in a long, long time.
I know it’s a relatively small part of the military budget, but Star Wars/ABM/Missile Defense/SDI/etc., has really gotta go. I read a book about a decade back that identifies SDI as the bellwether, the “canary in the coalmine,” the significant indicator as to whether we’re truly serious about cutting wasteful military spending or not.