Cut defense spending, says Eugene Robinson in this morning’s Washington Post. “The United States accounts for 46.5 percent of the world’s total defense spending,” he writes. “The next-biggest spender is China, which has undertaken an immense buildup to become a military as well as economic superpower – yet accounts for just 6.6 percent of the world’s total. And while the debt-ridden U.S. government shells out for nearly half of all global defense expenditures, our most loyal, stalwart, shoulder-to-shoulder allies – Britain and France – pitch in just 3.8 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively, of the world total. Somebody’s getting a free ride, and we’re getting stuck with the bill.”
It’s strange, but even though the calls for slashing the federal budget are increasing, almost no one is taking a cold, hard look at defense spending. True, President Obama‘s debt-reduction commission last week identified $100 billion in defense cuts that could be made by 2015, which would amount to a not-unimpressive 1/7th of the Pentagon’s annual budget.
But what I would really like to see is a top-to-bottom review, one that looks at what America needs. What does being the world’s one military superpower get us? What would we lose if we weren’t able to project so much force anywhere in the world? It’s high time we have a frank reassessment. Because right now we’re running about a trillion dollar annual deficit. As Robinson so cogently expresses it, “In effect, we’re borrowing money from China and using some of it to keep a measure of order in Afghanistan. This is allowing the Chinese to sign contracts and build infrastructure that will let them exploit Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth – while we repay the borrowed money with interest. And what kind of return are we getting on our $119.4 billion investment in Afghanistan this year? Our enemy, the Taliban, remains powerful and entrenched.”
When what you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. What would life look like if we had a smaller hammer?
While the United States concerns itself with operating the most expensive military in the world, the Chinese are making huge investments in solar-energy technology and high-speed rail systems–all of which will reduce their need for fossil years in the years to come. The Chinese now operate the world’s fastest supercomputer, thanks no doubt to their huge investment in Ph.D’s in math, science and engineering.
The Bush Administration repeatedly stressed that the U.S. would not occupy Iraq on a long-term basis. Yet, the U.S. still occupies Japan, Germany and Spain 65 years after World War II ended. (Do we really think the Russians are planning to invade Germany?)
We’ve spent a trillion dollars fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet good-old fashion detective work has done a better job of protecting us from terrorists, waterboarding be damned.
Last week, President Obama met with South Korean officials to discuss opening their nation’s borders to U.S.-made products. Of course, they rebuked him, citing the recent activities by the Federal Reserve Board as evidence of U.S. currency manipulation. Do you think South Korea would be the economic powerhouse that it is today if it had to buy all the equipment and personnel supplied to it free by the U.S. Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy?
In Monday’s New York Times, there was an article about how the U.S. will allow Israel to acquire 20 F-35 fighter planes, providing it undertakes a 90-day moratorium on settlement building. How can a nation as economically small as Israel afford to purchase aircraft that cost $92 million apiece? My guess is that purchase will be underwritten by U.S. taxpayers.
As a nation, when we talk about cutting the budget, we talk about education, social security, Medicare, etc. Things that affect the lives of everyday hard-working people. Not once, do we talk about the corporate welfare system that supports large military contractors, Wall Street investment houses or billionaire sports teams owners.