We can best honor those who have given their lives for this nation in combat by making sure our military might is proportional to what America needs.
The United States spends more on our military than do China, Russia, Britain, France, Japan, and Germany put together.
With the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the cost of fighting wars is projected to drop -- but the "base" defense budget (the annual cost of paying troops and buying planes, ships, and tanks -- not including the costs of actually fighting wars) is scheduled to rise. The base budget is already about 25 percent higher than it was a decade ago, adjusted for inflation.
One big reason: It's almost impossible to terminate large defense contracts. Defense contractors have cultivated sponsors on Capitol Hill and located their plants and facilities in politically important congressional districts. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and others have made spending on national defense into America's biggest jobs program.
So we keep spending billions on Cold War weapons systems like nuclear attack submarines, aircraft carriers, and manned combat fighters that pump up the bottom lines of defense contractors but have nothing to do with 21st-century combat.
For example, the Pentagon says it wants to buy fewer F-35 joint strike fighter planes than had been planned - the single-engine fighter has been plagued by cost overruns and technical glitches - but the contractors and their friends on Capitol Hill promise a fight.
The absence of a budget deal on Capitol Hill is supposed to trigger an automatic across-the-board ten-year cut in the defense budget of nearly $500 billion, starting January.
But Republicans have vowed to restore the cuts. The House Republican budget cuts everything else -- yet brings defense spending back up. Mitt Romney's proposed budget does the same.
Yet even if the scheduled cuts occur, the Pentagon is still projected to spend over $2.7 trillion over the next ten years.
At the very least, hundreds of billions could be saved without jeopardizing the nation's security by ending weapons systems designed for an age of conventional warfare. We should shrink the F-35 fleet of stealth fighters. Cut the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons, ballistic missile submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles. And take a cleaver to the Navy and Air Force budgets. (Most of the action is with the Army, Marines and Special Forces.)
At a time when Medicare, Medicaid, and non-defense discretionary spending (including most programs for the poor, as well as infrastructure and basic R&D) are in serious jeopardy, Obama and the Democrats should be calling for even more defense cuts.
A reasonable and rational defense budget would be a fitting memorial to those who have given their lives so we may remain free.
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Follow Robert Reich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RBReich
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Gosh, what if "...conventional warfare..." makes a comeback, Robert?
"We should shrink the F-35 fleet of stealth fighters."
If anything, we should expand the number of F-35s so our pilots won't be flying fighter aircraft older than they are. The F-117s were retired, not due to a lack of capability, but due to an ever-increasing cost of maintaining them.
"Cut the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons, ballistic missile submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles."
Sure, Robert. Right after Russia, China, and North Korea take theirs offline.
"And take a cleaver to the Navy and Air Force budgets. (Most of the action is with the Army, Marines and Special Forces.)"
You have just displayed a staggering ignorance of what is needed for national security and joint operations. In the face of such ignorance, I can only suggest that you consult with people who know more about it than you do, which could be just about anyone.
ECS
Freedom and democracy have always been achieved through violence or the threat of violence and protected by a nation's collective investment in a military that can defeat any external threat and a law enforcement system that contains domestic threats. The values liberals rightly pursue has been made possible by conservatives who insist keeping those protections. I believe our liberals (like Mr. Robert Reich) serve as the conscience of America, but many of us learned early in life that "hoping" in one hand, and "crapping" in the other, leads to discovering which hand is the messiest ... and we have to use both hands to clean up the mess!
My hope is that we never lose the freedom needed for our liberal visionaries to shout about the flaws in our "more perfect union" ...that's why I served my time in a military and I support keeping it "over strength", just as I support adding to those countless numbers of good law enforcement men and women who guard against the heathen among us day and night ... we need all of them!
Note that we're afraid of something that only we do. We're the only country in the 20th century that has routinely and successfully invaded other countries to take their land, their resources, and their sovereignty. Other countries have briefly tried, and gotten smacked down, but only the USA has done that over and over and over.
I agree completely.
I would also add that, aside from the cuts to social programs, this budgetary black hole also diverts funding from things that we actually do need such as body armor for soldiers. It's terrible. We're starving our people and needlessly putting soldiers in greater danger in order to purchase expensive weapon systems that we simply don't need.
"Trimming the fat" sounds good, but we need a paradigm shift.
A recent pole showed that Americans experiencing financial stress favor Romney over Obama by about 55% to 34%.
Meanwhile Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other democrats are supporting the reduction of benefit from social security, medicare, medicaid etc.
No wonder people are confused. We basically have a one party system shaped by the oligarchs.
Bottom line, money is syphoned off for greedy Americans, and guess who most of them are?
Republicans are soooo NOT what we need in charge of America's purse strings.
It comes amidst another glaring poster child for waste, the F22, which doesn't have a mission. It comes with the bonus of probably being unsafe for the pilots flying it. Another massive waste of money that does not enhance American security one iota.
The insanity in the Pentagon along with the massive tentacles of the MIC will always find ways to waste money on dubious projects spread across every Congressional district.....
Unless We the People stand up and say NO!
So, there is some proportion of this going on in the defense budget, it protects us, it forces the world to take us seriously … not something to overlook these days, it employs a lot of people, and defense technology (not the space program) has been the motivator behind out technological prow less … what we have left of it anyway.
I think we need a big defense budget until our, or the world's relationship with China is more defined. We have given so much to China … why are they building military equipment? Why are they trying to become a major nuclear power in the world? Why do they colonize places like Tibet and enslave people? You can bet that China has a major inferiority complex that it aims to turn around and mythologize, like Italy before WWII.
Certainly we can become more efficient, but I don't think there is room for huge cuts in the military until the world situation becomes more predictable, and we see a leadership future for America in the it. Right now, who knows. Let's not throw away the one thing America can do right … build, use and sell military hardware. Sad, but true.
Even if it was true that China has been peaceful, which it is not, past performance is not guarantee of future performance.
Tibet? China is an odd country. They sustained such humiliation in the last centuries, and such trauma that it can lead to something like the Italian fascists where Mussolini was out to re-capture the historic greatness of Italy, the Roman empire … and China is ripe for that kind of thinking - or could be.
Just a hypothetical …. if "curtailing his ability to do what he does best" was going to lead to global insecurity and war, and the decline of the US … if … would you still be as gleeful and cynical?
Yes, the Defense budget could use a cut.....across the board....., but clearly the former Secretary is talking about things he knows little about.
If the USA wants the capabilities to intervene or oppose foreign forces.....in distant locations....our super carriers are the only way to do so. Upgrading their air arms with cutting edge aircraft gives us the superiority edge. Nuclear weapons systems are the least expensive aspect of the defense budget....advocating cuts there is simply proof that the interest is in nuclear disarmament and not cutting the budget.
Finally, the comment/advice to "take a cleaver to the Navy and Air Force budgets is just silly. How do the Army and Marines get themselves to the battlezone? Via the Air Force and Navy. Who provides air cover and support? Navy and Air Force air arms.
Stick to the classroom Mr. Former Secretary, please don't put forth political ideology and call it experienced policy options.
How do we project power/protect interests in the Pacific, Gulf, etc etc?
You are aware that ALL carriers can't be at see at ALL times?
Troops are not carried in battle by F18's......you either don't understand the role of air superiority OR don't understand the concept of close air support.
As far as England, France, India, Italy......they don't pull their weight worldwide when it comes to defense,,,,,we shoulder most of the burden.....don't agree.....think we should reduce SOME of our conventional coverage and replace with mutal defense treaties based on FIRST USE of NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
We don't need 30,000 troops and their equipment and planes in South Korea to defend against the North.....we just need to have an automatic nuclear response to ANY attack/invasion on the South by the North.
Same goes for Middle East......tell the Arabs ANY attack/invasion of Israel will trigger an automatic nuclear attack......Goes for the Chinese re: any ASEAN nation.
We can defend absolutely, but we have to be prepared to use ALL of our weaponry.
So if the Left wants to reduce the defense budget, then they can embrace nuclear deterrance.
I for one, since we pay six figures in taxes, don't want the Navy or and other branch to pay for anything that isn't 100% of contract specs. Why would ANYONE in the Federal government let ANY supplier off the hook?
No one on the Left EVER talks about jobs (skilled) lost if the advocated budget cuts are put in place.
There could be hundreds of thousands of jobs open up if there was more money used to rebuild America's infrastructure.