Cabinet officers are expected to protect the interests of their departments. Therefore it is not surprising that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's letter to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) on Nov. 14, 2011 warns them that the effects of sequestration would be devastating for the Department of Defense. However, close examination of the letter demonstrates that the impact would not be as great as the Secretary claims.
Sequestration would mean that the Pentagon would have to absorb $600 billion in reductions over the FY 2013-2021 period compared to projected levels. Adding in the $400 billion in reductions it is already planning to make would bring the total to about $1 trillion over the next decade.
But the letter does not mention that the baseline defense budget was projected to grow by 26 percent from $554 billion in FY 2012 to $696 billion in FY 2021, and that total (non-war) spending would be $6.2 trillion over this period. A $1-trillion reduction would mean spending "only" $5.2 trillion but would still result in a defense budget increase of almost 20 percent. In other words, there are no reductions. Defense would still grow, but not as fast. Moreover, sequestration will return defense spending in real terms to its FY 2007 level, the next to last year of the Bush administration, when no one was complaining about devastating levels of spending.
Nor does the letter contain any acknowledgement that over the past decade, the baseline budget has more than doubled and that total defense spending, even in the real terms, is higher than at any time since World War II.
The most misleading claim is that that at the end of 10 years of sequestration, we would have the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the air force.
What the Secretary does not tell us is that today's ground forces (Army and Marines) are among the largest and most capable in the world, and that he is referring only to the active force. Unlike 1940, we also have a large reserve component, which was used extensively and effectively in Iraq and Afghanistan. Similarly, our Navy is larger than the next 13 navies combined, and our Air Force is increasingly composed of unmanned planes.
The letter lists a whole host of weapons programs that the Secretary claims would have to be terminated or reduced. Here again he overstates the impact. Let me give but two examples. Panetta argues DOD could procure "only" 10 new ballistic missile submarines instead of 12. But he ignores the fact that by increasing the number of missiles on each submarine and the number of warheads per missile, we actually need only 8 to maintain the robustness of this leg of the triad.
Similarly, he says, without specifying when, he could terminate the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But what he does not say is that the Navy and Marines can continue to buy the latest models of the F/A-18 E/F and the Air Force the F-16. While these plans may not be quite as effective as the F-35, they are far better than anything any other country has.
Since it became clear that the projected levels of defense spending would have to be reduced, a number of comprehensive plans have been put forth preparing reductions of about $1 trillion of the next decade. These include those of the Deficit Reduction Commission, the Gang of Six Senators, and Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). All of these show how we can reduce spending without harming national security. These should be our guide if sequestration kicks in.
Gordon Campbell: An Open Letter to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction
Lanny Davis: Obama and the Super Committee - the Time to Lead Is Now
Jonathan Masters: Defense Spending and the Deficit Debate
http://www.wallstreetrant.com/2011/11/how-is-it-hard-to-cut-12-trillion-out.html
The greatest threat to America right now is economic, not military. If we lose lives to a military attack we will lose many more if our economy collapses. No great civilization can sustain itself while remaining on a war footing perpetually. There must be periods of peace to educate your people, redirect resources to development of the civilian society, improve the quality of your citizen's lives, develop your culture.
And let us not forget that a large measure of the impetus toward more defense spending is caused by the war profiteers whose interest is in riches not security.
Rather than the current likelihood that weak willed and corrupt legislators will permit cuts to social security and medicare, we should have leaders with the integrity and drive to eliminate at least one leg of our nuclear triad...instead we have a built-in 26% increase in DOD spending over the next ten years only reduced to a 20% INCREASE if sequestration is allowed to occur as we have been told it will?
We no longer need all of our 3 systems; land based missles, subs and air. Get rid of one leg and save money for real..do the right thing instead of bowing to the pressure and lobby of the military industrial complex and the wishes of the congresspersons they have paid good money for.
Americans love to wave flags especially on veterans day...in a sense what this country is today, what passes for government, the economic servitude, two tiered justice, the prison industrial complex and the absolute corruption of washington is a shame and disgrace to all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. I know they didn't do it for this. We owe it to them tro fix it.
We have to answer this question first: Do we want to continue being the world police or not? Then decide what budget we need for DOD. If we want to have more Libya's, we cant cut. If we want to send troops to Aussie Land, we cant cut. If we want to stay in Japan and North Korea, we cant. If we want to be able to do thing like we did in Serbia, we cant. No one is really having the real discussion. I am not a Ron Paul fan, but he is presenting one side of this issue. We need to figure this out.
"At the end of 2008, that debt equaled 40 percent of the nation’s annual economic output (as measured by gross domestic product, or GDP), a little above the 40-year average of 36 percent. Since then, large budget deficits have caused debt held by the public to shoot upward; the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that federal debt will reach 62 percent of GDP by the end of this year—the highest percentage since shortly after World War II."
The problem goes far beyond Military spending! It's Government spending across the board that needs to be Castrated!
KEEP the ships spend less time ''steaming''
KEEP the planes spend less time flying
S T O P B U Y I G N E W S T U F F
If and when you need it . . . you have it
It is, after all, the DEFENSE DEPARTMENT NOT OFFENSE
In manpower, resources and the country's future.
It's time to address some fundamental issues in defense spending.
I can give you a long list, but why belabor the point?
1. Why do we in the USA have a military still structured to fight against the Soviet Union?
2. Why is there still a NATO, given the fact that its enemies have disappeared, like the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact?
3. Why has the United States built up Communist China, especially given our 50 year Cold War against Communism?
4. What is the current justification for the Nuclear Triad, especially given America's overwhelming military superiority?
5. If America's new enemy is "terrorism", which is a nebulous monster, why treat it as a military target and not an intelligence target?
6. If America maintains a million man military force, including military contractors, is there a danger in using it to justify its existence?
7. What monster are we creating with the creation and supporting of military contractors, paid mercenaries?
It is a massively inefficient machine. To believe that there is not 10% savings to be wrung out of the DOD is ludicrous considering that it has DOUBLED in spending over the last 10 years. Give me a break. It is up to the President to push this agenda as the Republicans are failing completely on this measure.
I think also that other Generals, including the one who occupies a place on our one-dollar bill, had a strong influence when they stipulated that all funding for war must be for two years only, and that all wars must be declared by the Congress ... not engaged in by the Commander-in-Chief on his own authority.
To this day, the Congress wrestles with this matter with legislation such as the War Powers Act ... a law that is famously ignored.
Why? "Because there's so damn MUCH Money in it." How else can you get a Trillion dollars to build a bomber (or a fighter, or some other piece of equipment that is ##CLASSIFIED##) when the American people can't go to a hospital without going to the poor-house at the same time? You get to build your bomber, and the school that your kids ... uhh, strike that, the "other" 99% of the kids ... go to has to have a bake-sale to fix the roof?
As "Ike" said, this is a real danger to our republic. It insists that it is the ONLY priority. And, if your head can be turned by pork or baubles or bribery, it's Let's Make A Deal.
We need to be a military colossus to spend more money on offence so that we will be taken seriously in the world that after all is the goal of civilization isn’t it? The people will just have to suffer and die so that we can carry the biggest stick, they don’t need to live in houses or have enough to eat, they don’t need health care or jobs because military might is the most important thing in life.
We need more prisons than other countries because we have more criminals. I suppose this is because being a good American is hard and there are lots of people who don’t make the cut and need to be removed and isolated for the good of the majority.
The extent of their world view is, "find someone who doesn't agree with you, and blow them up."
They sit around all day in their ##CLASSIFIED## chambers, talking about "important" things like ##CLASSIFIED## and ##CLASSIFIED## and of course, ##CLASSIFIED##, and every now and then they get to talking about whether the budget for the ##CLASSIFIED## department should be ##CLASSIFIED## or ##CLASSIFIED## ...
... and never is there any other voice in the room but their own.
What's probably the one biggest reason why America finds herself in the financial and other straits that she's now in? A historian could tell you instantly. These endless military junkets have siphoned it all off. What started off healthy with five pints of blood is now running on half a teaspoon. All that financial skulduggery? To pay for More War while doing it all in secret.
And the Bribes? "Lordy, lordy." Why, they say that, just last month, ##CLASSIFIED## got ##CLASSIFIED## dollars under the table! (And "they" is in prison now for violating the Espionage Act, just for talking about it over dinner with his wife. The room was bugged, of course.
Defense can take some cuts in certain weapon platforms sure, but to continue to cut personnel to the point where you have one person doing the job of four or five people is stupid and it’s dangerous.