Indefensible Defense Budgeting

NYT ^ | 7/25/04

[Ranger]

Published: July 25, 2004

 

mong the most frightening conclusions of the 9/11 commission's report is that two administrations failed to grasp the new world in which the most dangerous threats come as much from informal networks of terrorists as from national governments, and left the nation with a vast national security apparatus that did not detect, understand or thwart Al Qaeda's plotting. That new reality applies equally to military policy, which the Bush administration continues to mismanage with the same cold war thinking deplored by the 9/11 commission when it came to intelligence gathering.

In Afghanistan, a war strategy directed toward removing the Taliban government left Al Qaeda leaders in their mountain redoubts. In Iraq, the administration vastly overestimated the military threat posed by a cornered dictator and was totally unprepared for the violent resistance that followed his swift overthrow. And when it comes to the military budget, President Bush has failed to acknowledge either the real costs of his policies or the need for a radical shift from expensive superweapons to increased numbers of adequately trained and equipped ground forces.

Just as the commission's report should bring major reforms in the management of America's intelligence agencies, it is as important that it lead to a thorough reconfiguration of the military budget. If the White House and the Pentagon cannot do it, the Congressional appropriators who too readily rubber-stamp Defense Department requests will have to subject military budgets to far more aggressive scrutiny than the bloated $416 billion spending package they approved last week.

That legislation incorporates a special $25 billion request for immediate needs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and adds, at least temporarily, a desperately needed 30,000 troops to the active duty Army. If past patterns hold, even that $25 billion may not be enough, and the Pentagon continues to resist permanently moving resources from unneeded weapons to badly needed troops. Taken as a whole, this year's budget, like previous ones, lavishes enormous sums on costly futuristic gadgets like stealth fighters and missile defense systems, for which there are no clear, current military justifications, and pinches pennies when it comes to anticipating the real needs of American ground troops already in combat.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office of Congress shows that the administration has consistently underestimated the actual costs of the Iraq war, forcing the military to cut corners in ways that increase today's risks and tomorrow's expenses. While waiting for the latest supplemental spending, the military has had to postpone repairs of worn-out equipment and delay training exercises - and it still had to take money meant for other things to meet immediate needs. It's inexcusable that a country spending more than $400 billion a year on defense is facing squeezes like this. The main cause was the administration's unrealistic assumption that it would be able to make do with far fewer troops in Iraq right now, despite continuing insurgent attacks, the unreliability of Iraqi security forces and the general unwillingness of other countries to help.

The Pentagon now acknowledges that roughly 138,000 United States troops will be in Iraq for the foreseeable future. That is a lot, but a country with more than 40 million people between the ages of 18 and 30 could have managed it much better. By waiting as long as it has to expand recruitment quotas for the Regular Army, the Pentagon found itself compelled to turn to unwise and unfair expedients like forced extensions of combat duty tours and involuntary recalls of discharged veterans. It also resorted to a clearly unsustainable overuse of National Guard divisions in overseas combat zones. Roughly 40 percent of American troops in Iraq now come from National Guard or Reserve units. This undermines the country's ability to respond to domestic terrorism, especially since many Guard members work as firefighters and in other emergency response jobs in civilian life.

America's post-cold-war Army was never designed for an extended, largely unilateral occupation in the face of multiple armed resistance groups. The challenge became even harder after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld airily dispensed with serious postwar planning and insisted, against the advice of experienced commanders, that the occupation begin with far fewer ground troops than were needed to prevent looting and establish security.

There is no question that the escalating costs of this misconceived war in Iraq have become a continuing drain on America's ability to fight terrorism elsewhere. Until Washington finds a way to internationalize the responsibility for solving the problems it has unleashed, it needs to factor those costs honestly into the military budget. The rational way to do that is to shift funds away from unneeded cold war weapons, not to force the Army to defer repairs and training and damage future recruiting by involuntarily calling back those who have already served.

 

[tbpiper]

...this misconceived war in Iraq...

These Times morons will never get it,

[libertylover]

mong the most frightening conclusions of the 9/11 commission's report is that two administrations failed to grasp the new world in which the most dangerous threats come as much from informal networks of terrorists as from national governments...

Oh, and I'm sure the wise NYT was imploring these two administrations to shift their focus. Yeah, that's what it was but the administrations just wouldn't listen when the NYT wanted more and smarter defense spending. GIVE ME A BREAK.

[Ranger]

The important point here is that we've got to get funding shifted to current needs which are being underfunded and away from cold war projects.

For example army ground equipment, equipment maintenance and repair, and troop training are and will continue to be short-changed while billions are sent on projects or deployments no longer relevant to our national defense. The troops in the field are not getting the priority they need; examples are delayed and inadequate body armor production, inadequate and delayed vehicular armor and armored vehicle production of various kinds, inadequate ammunition production of numerous kinds, inadequate troop strength causing extended and involuntary service, obsolete night vision equipment, inadequate equipment maintenace spending causing breakdowns in the field and the removal of needed tracked equipment in combat areas, inadequate spare part production and availability.

Amazingly, most of this is not expensive stuff in the context of a $400+ billion budget, but rather one of priorities and leadership.

There is plenty of blame to go around amongst 2 administrations, one congress and one DoD. Its the troops in the field though that ultimately pay the price. They deserve better from us and our leaders.

[gaspar]

If the United States succeeds in remaking the political map of the Middle East it will be no thanks to the NYTimes, a newspaper that has judged incorrectly every singular moment from Versailles to the invasion/occupation of Iraq. It seems to take a sadistic pleasure in being on the wrong side of history.

[centurion316]

One assumes that this is an editorial, although with the New York Times, its hard to tell. Its also hard to distinguish this from the position of the Democrat Party - in fact the NYT ought to send the Democrats a bill for carrying their political advertising.

Unlike the NYT, I believe that we are fighting the right war at the right time. We ignore the state sponsors of terrorism at our peril. Terrorists and their enabler nation states mean to destroy us. The only way to prevent this is to attack both the terrorists themselves and their support structure. If we walk away from this challenge, we will suffer an attack hundreds of times worse than the attack of 9/11.

Toward that end, we should heed what the NYT recommends. The Army is bearing the brunt of this fight and is not getting the resources it needs. Air Force and Navy programs with their billions for key defense industries trump Army needs in both the DoD and the Congress. The Army is forced to move money around as best it can - note the delay of the Future Combat System - that decision frees up some dollars to meet urgent needs, but means that the Army has to cut its own programs to support this war.

All that said, don't believe for a moment that the Democrats would do any better. Democrats have not supported defense spending since the Johnson Administration. They have decimated our defense capability and would do so again. What they will do is retreat from the world stage, through lots of money toward homeland defense (read adding lots of union jobs in fire, police and local government). Then they will hunker down and wait for the slaughter. When it comes, they will blame the Republicans for not being nicer to the French.

[meenie]

It's a real challenge for the NYT. Don't those fools realize that when an Al Qaeda sticks his head out of a hole, the only answer is to take a stealth, strike fighter costing 200 million and change over to blast his ass with a million dollar J-Dam? Who said that the war on terror was going to be cheap?

If you have a group of jihadists in a certain country raising hell, by God, strike that country with everything you can throw at them, and worry about the reconstruction later. That's the American way. Give them their freedom right down their throats, they'll learn to love it. If you are going to be a super-power you have to expect to be a super-spender. Anything less, and the rest of the world will not be impressed.

[tbpiper]

funding shifted to current needs which are being underfunded and away from cold war projects.

We still have one very serious 'cold war' enemy, China. While our main concern right now is the war on terror, we must guard against being blindsided by China or one of China's surrogates. Cutting cold war project funding can free up tons of money, but it needs to be done with a scalpel and not with an axe and those funds need to stay in defense and not siphoned off for some 'midnight basketball' bribe.

There is plenty of blame to go around amongst 2 administrations, one congress and one DoD.

I don't think the current administration can be saddled with much blame. Under normal circumstances, defense issues, i.e., projects, deployment strategies, etc., have their own natural inertia that makes their shifting cumbersome. The current administration has not only had to contend with that but has been acitively opposed, undercut, and generally back stabbed by the opposition party who's future is dependent on bodega's and military failure.

Its the troops in the field though that ultimately pay the price. They deserve better from us and our leaders.

I support that notion whole heartedly. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind participating in a new war bond program if the money goes directly to supporting the troops.

[Ranger]

If the United States succeeds in remaking the political map of the Middle East ...

Is that the agenda of the war? I don't know. That's a lot broader than destroying al-Qaeda. Perhaps we should define our objectives a little more narrowly and achievably.

[Ranger]

The NYT article is really an editorial surrounded by facts. NYT's is bad about that. This is a good example.

As to the "right war at the right time", well I once thought that but not at this point. I would rather see our troops raiding in and out of northern Pakistan to disrupt al-Qaeda or in western Iran. These areas are what Cambodia was to Vietnam, a safe-haven for our enemies. That has little to do with why we have 138K men in Iraq. These are clearly state sponsors as are elements of Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Sudan. Given the choice of OBL's head on a stick or Saddam in a hole, I'd rather have OBL et al on a stick.

The Army is being short changed. Funds have got to be increased and re-allocated. I doubt al-Qaeda will be developing a meaningful Navy for example and its air force is unconventional at best. Not to take anything away from the value of those armed services, the fact is we don't have enough troops or equipment for them on the ground. Rumsfeld probably made more progress on reshaping the military than any anyone else in living memory, but he is also responsible for the budget gaming over the last year and the lack of troops. Political leadership, or lack thereof, in Congress and the White House compound this problem. Presidential campaign commercials don't put armor on our troops or bullets in their guns. Democratics have certainly led the charge for basic equipment in the last year, but it was after years of underfunding and neglect they contributed to. And one only has to watch the generals in Capitol Hill testimony to know that many of them left their courage on the battlefield and forgot it when it would have been most useful at hearing after hearing over the last year. We have got to get these troops in the field what they need and if political vases have to be broken, then its time to pick up a bat. American's would support a mobilization of its industry, but that call never came. Where was the civilian political leadership or the frank candidness of military leadership prepared to put the welfare of its troops over the prospect of promotion?

Homeland protection is a barrel of pork, but its also about port protection, radios for police and firemen and the prevention of al-Qaeda from getting access to the only air force I'm aware they ever had. Coordination of intel and security at home barely got going before political correctness set in and petty special interests retarded the effort. It will take another devastating hit at home to change this. Unfortunately with 138K troops in Iraq, OBL and his safe havens remain largely intact and are motivated as never before. We are giving him another chance to hit us and he rarely passed up the opportunity

Treasure is not infinite and we must use what we have more efficiently.

[centurion316]

When we decide to start a war, we have to have the will to force the outcome that we want, despite the uncertainties that come with combat. What I have seen is resolve at the Presidential level, and stubborness at the civilian leadership level of the Pentagon, unwilling to admit that their original plan wasn't perfect (none ever are). The Congress is best characterized by wobbly knees (with some notable exceptions.) The reason that we have to follow through, and the reason why we had to do this are very much the same. If we had limited our response to Afghanistan alone, the Islamic world would have concluded that we remain weak, only willing to take on the low hanging fruit. As long as OBL remains in his Pakistan sanctuary, it doesn't matter how much force we use in Afghanistan. Our only prudent course was to take on one of the "Axis of Evil" states - both to reduce the direct threat to our homeland, and to serve as a lesson to others. I believe that Lybia's change of behavior is a direct result of our action in Iraq. Pakistan is still straddling the fence, probably because the fear that a Kerry Administration will walk away from them. Iran, North Korea, and Syria have not changed course, but at least are biding their time. If we waiver, they will resume their high level of support of terrorism and will at some future point, deliver up a nuclear weapons for terrorist to use against us. Our only hope is that by remaining strong and making clear that they will pay the same price that Sadaam paid - they will hesitate to act.

I don't hold out for many displays of courage inside the beltway.

Lots of shortcomings in Homeland Security, but instead of addressing those shortcomings in a logical, prioritized fashion, the committee of 535 is going to pass out the pork equally across the congressional districts. Not much of a terrorist threat out here in Kansas.

[gaspar]

You set up a democratically elected President with a generally democratic shura that can survive the attacks it is sure to get and the Middle East political map will have undergone a seachange. Maybe it isn't a return to the Abbasid Caliphate, and the Shiites will still be searching for the lost Imam, but what the Hell, there will be a whole lotta shakin' goin' on in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.