NY Times Takes on Pentagon Spending With Two Hands Tied Behind Its Back

The New York Times has posted seven super-short columns on how to cut the U.S. military. All seven seem to support cutting the military in one way or another. That's excellent, and I don't mean to complain, but . . . .

The United States has the largest military in the world. We could cut it by 85% and still have the largest military in the world. And that's without counting all the military spending that we funnel through departments other than the Pentagon, spending that brings our annual total to around $1 trillion.

Seeking to dominate the entire planet by force is a losing proposition, but it isn't challenged in the New York Times' columns. In fact, the case for even teeny cuts to the military isn't so much made as assumed, as is the case for ending current wars. But the possible need for future wars is simply accepted, and the damage the wars do -- outside of budgetary concerns -- is either avoided entirely or reduced to purely U.S. terms:

"The lethality of the World War I battlefield -- a war in which we sustained 310,000 casualties in less than six months -- was far greater than anything we've witnessed over the last 10 years in Iraq or Afghanistan."

Tell that to 1.3 million dead Iraqis. The New York Times is teaching the xenophobia and militarism that causes the military spending and wars, while supposedly "debating" how to cut the military.

It is impossible to tell from these seven tiny columns how much military spending the authors want to cut. The President of the United States now describes as "cuts" reductions to future dream budgets even when those reductions still mean increases over current spending. So, it would have been useful for these columnists to clarify that they are proposing actual cuts. Instead, the first column frames the matter in terms of cutting a future dream budget:

"We should lower the current 10-year defense plan by 15 percent, contributing a trillion dollars to deficit reduction and leaving in place a globally operating, dominant military capability."

But a trillion dollars over 10 years is only $100 billion per year, and cutting $100 billion from a military budget that the Pentagon is dreaming of for 10 years from now is relative to that dream. It's also beyond the terms of any current elected officials. Not a single one of the seven Times columnists began to address how current elected officials might be persuaded to cut anything out of the Pentagon.

The second columnist proposed a similar level of cuts, to begin in four years: "Phasing in these recommendations over time will enable savings of $100 billion per year beginning in 2015." That sounds nice in 2011. But what about in 2015 when you have to compel Congress to do it?

The third columnist actually argued against a particular kind of cut, without arguing in favor of cutting anything else: "There is a risk that reducing force size will send military personnel and their families into a civilian world where the safety net has been torn apart by spending cuts, reduced eligibility and reduced coverage." Think about that. Because we leave non-military Americans without healthcare or retirement funding, we should maintain the size of the military, where we do provide Americans with good pay and benefits as part of our inducement to get them to kill and die in wars we later quietly admit should never have happened. Of course, we could provide many more people with pensions and healthcare, for the same money, if we were not also providing some of them with guns, tanks, drones, and ships.

The fourth columnist dreams of even smaller reform: "Savings of $70 billion can be achieved from a number of reforms." How pathetically vague and unthreatening of you.

The fifth aims a little higher: "Reducing force structure and downsizing from today’s 1.5 million active-duty troops to a more manageable 1.1 million would cut the military’s requirements for equipment and support as well as pay and benefits, saving as much as $120 billion a year from current levels."

The sixth seems -- again, depending on exactly what we're talking about cutting -- to aim significantly higher still: "If we act prudently, a 40 percent reduction in annualized savings achieved over three years is not unreasonable."

But the seventh strives to underwhelm them all: "Ground forces' ranks could shrink by at least a third, saving upward of $30 billion annually."

We are talking about a government department that "misplaces" over $30 billion annually. We are talking about a war machine that is itself, as Eisenhower warned, a major motivator of the wars we so casually and tangentially "regret." We are talking about, or failing to talk about, a war machine that attempts domination of the surface of the earth, outerspace, cyberspace, and the space between our ears. The New York Times hopes to remain a significant cog in that machine while discussing little tweaks to it.

Instead, the whole thing needs to be undone.

My rough estimate for the the entire spend on the military given war, defense and other budgets together is about 800 billion / yr. Cut it 500 billion and that should leave 300 billion / yr which is still FAR more than anyone else spends.

Time to tell Pentagon that is the budget, period, make do. Yes this might clip the wings of the military, empire building corps and politicians, but I think that would be a good thing.

Yes I want to reduce the debt, and I think they are being too timid and looking in all the wrong areas. Here are my suggestions:

Massive cuts to the military
Restore taxes on wealthy to prior levels (raise them at least to Clinton levels of 45 %)
End Corp welfare
Put in place SIngle Payer Health care to reduce medical costs by 2/3
Cut Congressional benefits to 401k match like the rest of us.

Rough estimate I think that comes to at least 8 trillion over 10 years. Cut that first and let's see how the budget stacks up then.

Only afterward can you talk to me about 'share the burden' cuts to the average person

works for me

I thought Clinton's 20th century levels were less than 40%... 3.69% or something.

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When are they gonna point that out?


(wringing hands) "If we cut it.... Those companies will have nothing to do!!! (oh, and all those workers will have no jobs!)"

Well, in WWII, the car companies started making tanks in a matter of months, no? Hows about we make some wind turbines, or high speed trains, or even build some new bridges or something? Think we could get that going in a matter of months? Of course those contractors might not pull in such a great haul of cash, but our country might be a place someone might want to live in.

- It'll have to be "helped."

K&R

WW2 ended long ago, and same with the cold war. Why do we have troops in Europe, Japan, South Korea, etc? I just don't get it. Maybe someone can break it down for me.

I can only imagine how much this costs us every year. This is not the world of old. It does not take months and years to mobilize an army if we really need it.

I use to be in the military and even lived in Germany as a kid. I assume it is so we have a place in the world we can strike form if needed. Never really thought it was our job.

We need the troops home. From everywhere.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken