Change in the Air

In spite of clear evidence that America's military has been "overstretched" for some time, little has been done to rein in spending. In fact, in President Obama's proposed $3.8 trillion budget for the coming fiscal year, defense has been declared "off limits for big cuts."

That said, a commentary by Sandra I. Erwin in National Defense (published by the industry-friendly National Defense Industrial Association), "Day of Reckoning Ahead for U.S. Defense Spending," suggests things may be about to change:

The nation’s dismal economy has cost millions of Americans their jobs, homes and life savings. Barring a miraculous recovery, the economy’s next target could be America’s military superiority.

Before anyone panics, the U.S. military will continue to be the world’s most powerful for years to come. But the extended forecast does not look good. The government’s own defense gurus are warning that it is not a question of if, but when the United States will lose its military superpower status.

These ominous predictions, by all accounts, are hard to fathom. The Pentagon’s budget this year is the highest since World War II — and accounts for almost half of what the world’s militaries spend.

But with the nation drowning in debt, it isn’t difficult to see how the financial burdens of superpowerdom may be too much to bear. The United States, some experts warn, would be wise to restrain military spending in order to regain its financial strength. Congressional Research Service analyst Stephen Daggett best articulated the dilemma facing the United States.

“We’re in the midst of a shift away from American military predominance toward something different,” Daggett told members of Congress last fall. “The big change that’s going on in the international security environment doesn’t have to do with military forces, it has to do with financial power, and the financial shifts are all away from the United States and toward Asia,” he said. “We’re still, for several years, clearly going to be technologically predominant in military capabilities. How long we’ll have the ability to do all of the above — to project power of every kind, both in ground forces, maritime forces, air forces, I don’t know, but it’s eroding slowly over time.”

Even defense hawks are recognizing that the immense spending of the past decade while the U.S. military has been fighting two wars at a cost of more than a trillion dollars means it will soon be time to pay the piper.

“The fact that U.S. defense spending has doubled during the same period that its economy has shrunk from 32 to 23 percent of global output tells you a day of reckoning lies ahead for U.S. defense spending,” wrote industry analyst Loren Thompson, CEO of the Lexington Institute. “Five percent of the world’s population can’t keep sustaining nearly half of global military outlays while generating only a quarter of global output. … We have reached a point in our history where our resources are so constrained that the only way we can maintain our current military posture is to borrow money from the future military adversary we should fear the most — China. Obviously, this is not a tenable arrangement over the long run.”

Although the author acknowledges that "predictions of defense budget train wrecks have become an inside joke in Washington," rapidly escalating burgeoning financial and political pressures indicate this time will, in fact, be different.

Comments

[Zapper]

I think we are already passed the point defined in this article. Once our competitors approach technological parity with us, we won't stand much of a chance against non-PC, non-affirmative action, non-humane training restricted armies such as Russia and especially China. That parity is rapidly approaching. Worse, we can only see partial views of our enemy’s true capabilities. For instance the Russian’s highly publicized T-50 flights are very telling of what they are up too. Plus the Topol M ICBM is rumored to have stealth technology. Furthermore, our culture foolishly assumes the world is like a big happy family a la hollywood etc. This plays into the hands of hegemonic countries like China because we are less inclined to see the deliberate attacks from their asymmetric warfare that has been going on for some time.

[Independent Accountant]

I agree with Zapper. The extent of American's ignorance of military affairs is astounding.