Should we cut our defense spending in half?
To politically balance my previous suggestion to cut US medical spending in half, let me now suggest we cut US military spending in half. I haven't researched this subject anywhere near as much as medicine, so I can't argue as strongly. But the simple argument seems compelling: The US with 27% of world product has about 46% of world military spending (up from 40% in 2000). Yet our "defense" needs are few, as we are rich, isolated, have friendly neighbors, and haven't been invaded for centuries. And it is hard to see how "offense" spending at this level could possibly be cost-effective.
Well, there's one way: the US could be like Alcoa. That is, we are huge, and rich, and this makes us the low-cost provider of military services to the world. We are so cost-effective that no one else even bothers trying to enter the market to compete against us. We've achieved this position in part just by being huge and rich, but also in part through path dependence: over the last fifty years, we've gained a lot of relevant expertise at having a giant high-tech military.
If we cut our military spending in half, however, it might be worthwhile entering the market to compete against us. At 1-2% of GDP, other countries probably could field an army against us. Yes, we're isolated, but that also makes us vulnerable to things like interdiction of shipping, which is why we ended up in both World Wars last century. Plus, the invention of the intercontinental ballistic missile renders discussion of our isolation somewhat moot.
Imagine Europe if the US were not a global hegemon. I imagine Russia engaging in a rapid military buildup, taking back some of its lost territories, and wielding a great deal of influence over the ones on its new borders that it did not formally control. Europe would have to rapidly build up military strength, but this would be exceedingly difficult, because they've lost the knack. No European country can currently project force much beyond its own borders, several can't project it even within their own borders, and all of them have high levels of government spending that would get in the way of military buildups. Who will train new soldiers? What companies will design and build their military equipment? Who will secure their supply chain of critical resources while they do so? Industries do not spring full-grown from the head of Zeus; they rely on a lot of prior art. Once you've lost that prior art, you are at a severe disadvantage in the market, whether the market is for widgets or a powerful military.
It also could be worth noting that we have cut our defense spending significantly as a percentage of GDP. While it has gone back up from the low of 3% reached under Clinton to 4% this year, that's still lower as a percentage of GDP as any year from WWII until 1995. (The levels of defense spending criticized as too low under Carter were still 5% of GDP.)
Obviously we should send a bill to The Hague for services rendered. How large should it be? Start the meter running at the Berlin Airlift, but lets be generous and not compound interest. We could calculate everything in 2007 dollars, though.
"What companies will design and build their military equipment?"
defence-data.com/ripley/pagerip1.htm
Interesting way to think about this. I had usually argued that this disproportionate military spending meant that either: 1. We aren't doing a particularly good job making the world safe for democracy, making high defense spending necessary (but also implying that we need a new global military strategy) or 2. We're spending way more than we need to on the military because the world just isn't as dangerous as we think. Your Alcoa example makes a pretty good case that there is a 3rd possibility, ie, that we've driven out competition in the field (this is what we would call the "good global hegemon" theory).
This 3rd possibility would seem to be closely related to how much overall global military spending has changed over the years- if, for instance, overall global military spending has been relatively static since the post-Cold War decline, but the US share has increased, you could argue that we are just driving competition out of the marketplace (ie, other countries are relying on us to "make the world safe for democracy"). On the other hand, if spending in the rest of the world has remained relatively constant while our spending has increased, then my possibilities 1 or 2 would seem to be more relevant.
I'll admit my interpretation could be wrong, and am happy to hear why it is flawed. But, if my interpretation is correct, then this link (http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp) would seem to rule out the Alcoa theory.
It's a little tempting, just because it would force some of the Euroweenie countries to wake up, stop being pacifistic, and defend themselves, rather than issuing blanket condemnations the US for thinking about defending them and itself (however ineptly it does so from time to time).
Of course, this is pure schaudenfreude, and I don't really want it to happen, but it would be a bit entertaining in an ironic sort of way.
If the United States Navy didn't exist, several powers would busily get to work trying to create it, with negative consequences which would be much more substantial than the ones associated with the United States operating such an entity.
To add on, the money spent on a carrier group has much more utility to the American citizenry as a whole than the equivalent amount of money sent to upper middle class and wealthy retirees.
I know the fake economist stuff is fun and all, but does anyone really buy:
"That is, we are huge, and rich, and this makes us the low-cost provider of military services to the world. We are so cost-effective that no one else even bothers trying to enter the market to compete against us."
Yes, the US Military's advantage is one of efficiency ::rolls eyes::. Have you even been remotely paying attention to American foreign policy the last 50 or so years?
Also absurd:
"Europe would have to rapidly build up military strength, but this would be exceedingly difficult, because they've lost the knack."
Is losing the knack an economist term? What if they went on a mission for the knack and found it where they left it, in a hole in the ground in the Congo? And how do you know Russia still has their knack? I've heard their knack may have been lost during a bombing mission in Chechnya.
" Industries do not spring full-grown from the head of Zeus; they rely on a lot of prior art. Once you've lost that prior art, you are at a severe disadvantage in the market, whether the market is for widgets or a powerful military."
Okay, you have an MBA. Business is your actual area of expertise. It turns out that the whole concept of intellectual property is designed to create a market, so that stuff like prior art can be bought and sold. Yay, markets.
I think it's important to look at the margins. For instance, the US fields roughly the same 2 million in forces as China, if you count US reservists. But the air power and air support spending between the two countries is highly disparate.
I like an all-volunteer force (a la Greenspan, Moynihan, et al) as I think it is truly democratic and forces the government and the generals to value a soldier's individual life more than if more soldiers could be had cheaply through coercion (i.e. conscription).
But if the US places a higher value on the life of its soldiers, then it's got to spend a lot more things like air support (which reduce casualties and increase medical recoveries). Cutting our spending will only cause more deaths. I can't get behind that in good conscience.
I like an all-volunteer force (a la Greenspan, Moynihan, et al) as I think it is truly democratic and forces the government and the generals to value a soldier's individual life more than if more soldiers could be had cheaply through coercion (i.e. conscription).
That's a nice plus, but the greatest virtue of the all-volunteer force is that the servicemembers WANT* to be in the service. This means that they fight better, have higher morale, are less likely to desert, and so on. In summary:
Volunteer Military > Conscript Military
*or at least they wanted to be when they signed up
MM: "interdiction of shipping, which is why we ended up in both World Wars last century"
Perhaps w/r/t WWI and perhaps, from an economist's perspective only, WWII. But once Britain survived the Blitz, there was no way, indiction of shipping or no, that the USA was not going to be party to WWII.
MM: "What companies will design and build their military equipment?"
As Njorl pointed out (I think) with an address, Eurpoean companies are ranked 4, 7, 9 and 11 among the largest non-Chinese defense contractors. Yes, the rest of the top 15 are all american, but I expect that the other 25 european companies in the top 100 would ramp up production if there were demand.
Given that the threat of the Cold War has faded away - I would love to hear what justifies 4% of GDP spending on defense.
I loved Reagan for bankrupting the Red Army from within without sending a single soldier over (in contrast to Vietnam). Star Wars worked! But that was the cold war - who is our enemy today other than ourselves??
What really sucks is that it is 'us', the US, who does promote nuclear energy abroad and hence guarantees conflicts for decades to come?
Notice how the energy sector = military?? Oil and nuclear - oil and nuclear - repeat after me - oil and nuclear.. now that oil has disappeared we will promote what? Nuclear to India, Pakistan, etc. no wonder that diplomacy with Iran and North Korea cannot work. We think we need nuclear - hence everybody else thinks they need nuclear. Hence we ALL need more military spending..
What is wrong with us? I mean - we kill the Rosenbergs for spreading nuclear insights abroad and now we do it ourselves with US tax money???
Just like the health care and tax subsidies - we subsidies unhealthy and unsustainable foods in contrast to health and sustainable. Then we tax everybody via income tax to pay for government health care... HELP, HELP, HELP! Danger, danger, danger!
If we were to invest 2% of GDP in solar (oil and nuclear independence) and sustainable agriculture ("food, water, land" will become the new "oil") - we would have a real ROI which is 1000% higher than current spending????
caveat bettor's got a point in his last paragraph: We spend money rather than lives. Other militaries, less well-funded, approach the problem differently. "Human wave" tactics and such, in extreme cases.
Meg: As far as hardware is concerned, we buy a godawful lot of small arms from the US division of Fabrique Nationale, a Belgian company. There are several other big-name, top-notch European small arms vendors: SIG, H&K, etc. They're pretty solid on airplanes and tanks as well.
Europe does have the expertise, both in design and in producing weapons on a commercial scale. Those are the hard parts. We scaled up weapons production massively during WWII, starting roughly where Europe is now. You've still got to scrape up the resources, of course, but that's a different question.
Lack of a military culture, military traditions, and trained military people with combat experience is likely to be a much more serious problem. Imagine being in something like an over-capitalized rapid-growth late-90s dot-com startup where nobody knows what's going on or what his job is — and you're under fire with these poor bastards. Look at the "Kitchener divisions" in WWI; gruesome stuff, and the UK at the time was a far more militaristic culture than anything in Europe now.
*or at least they wanted to be when they signed up.
Which begs the question*: If a volunteer military is such a great idea, why not also let them quit at any time?
After all, one of the problems with military service is that you don't know what you're going to be ordered to do. If someone supports the war in Iraq and wants to join, they could still be understandably worried that they could up being ordered to fight, say, Iran. Letting them quit would completely neutralize that complaint. Since we have real troop shortages, and even an unpopular war like Iraq has 30% support, which translates into 20 million 18-49 year olds, expanding the potential pool by making it voluntary might work better than effectively enslaving the already-enlisted.
Bo:
Why not let soldiers quit at any time? Do you really have to have that explained to you?
Because we'd get a whole lot of 'volunteers' who are either pacifists or cowards or just lazy and have no intention of actually fighting a war, but don't mind collecting a paycheck under false pretenses until they have to start earning it, at which point they would quit.
Why not let lifeguards quit as soon as someone starts calling for help? Lifeguarding would be a pretty easy job if all it involved was sitting in a tall chair in the hot sun and flirting with scantily-clad persons of whichever gender interests them: they wouldn't even have to learn to swim. Of course, the whole point of paying lifeguards is to have them ready at any time to risk their lives pulling some enormously fat, panicky, arm-flailing man out of the deep end without letting him pull them under. And the point of having an army is to have them ready for whatever wars come up during their term of enlistment, a fact they know when they sign up.
But, the reason we have "troop shortages" is because the mandated amount of troops is set low, not that we have shortage of bodies to meet that mandate.
What really sucks is that it is 'us', the US, who does promote nuclear energy abroad and hence guarantees conflicts for decades to come?
So, what about the conflicts in Rwanda, Myanmar, Darfur, and a host of other places have to do with energy policy?
You know, Dr. Weevil, if you had read Megan's original post and though about it for a second, you'd probably have realized that soldiers do lots of important and potentially dangerous stuff even in peacetime. It's never going to be a job for cowards and slackers. Do you really think, when they're not fighting wars, soldiers spend their days lounging around?
Yes, wars would necessarily be fought by the supporters of said wars, and wars without supporters willing to fight would not be fought. This notion offends the members of the 101st Chairborne for obvious reasons, since they feel the occasional blog posting should be all the support they ever need muster.
the mandated amount of troops is set low, not that we have shortage of bodies to meet that mandate.
The mandate is set low because when it was set higher, they couldn't recruit or maintain enough people to meet it. They're already offering huge sign-up bonuses to maintain the current army level.
Keith
So, what about the conflicts in Rwanda, Myanmar, Darfur, and a host of other places have to do with energy policy?
If you wonder why we do not intervene there as we would in Iraq, Iran or North Korea... World markets are not as dependent on those regions for oil and they do not have nuclear shit?
By all means - we should keep the nuclear weapons for now and make sure nobody else gets any.. But supporting India's and hence Pakistan's nuclear program is... smart???? Showing the world that we cannot cope without nuclear energy is smart? Tell me then - why should Iran not use nuclear "energy"? If WE cannot deploy alternatives we will find it hard, very hard, from preventing others to go after nuclear.
I'd stop subsidizing unsustainable and unhealthy agriculture (2% of GDP and more) and I would half military spending by half (2%) to push 4% of GDP into oil independent, conflict free sources such as solar and geothermal. With 4% of GDP - solar would be more economical than nuclear energy here and now (or at least for 1/3 of consumption - namely peak loads).
Then we could tell Tehran and Delhi and Islamabad that there ARE alternatives to nuclear energy. Right now - we are digging our own whole deeper?
Some relevant statistics:
Arms exports
Arms imports
Employment in arms production
I don't see why someone would worry much about Russia. Russia currently seems to be selling off military capacity rather than increasing it. They export more arms than the US but employ far less people in manufacturing them.
Further, as many commenters have pointed out several European nations do have significant arms export and manufacturing sectors, especially France, as can be seen in the statistics.
A very large and very sudden cut may expose some countries that are relying the US military to supplement their defenses, but it should be a simple matter to gradually draw down US military spending to half its current level while expanding exports to our allies. This will allow us to maintain or technological edge and ability to ramp up production in case of a crisis by hosting strong defense companies while fielding a smaller force.
They are free to sign an enlistment contract or not, but once the contract is signed, the individual is expected to fulfill the contract or to face early termination penalties.
BTW, Weevil, the salient problem is really that the armed forces need a lot more people during wartime than peacetime. That's a problem that we've completely failed to grapple with, leading to having both a large standing army and not enough troops to even effectively police a postage stamp of a country. Worrying about the ones you lose when war breaks out is exactly wrong when you need 300% of the pre-existing troops not 95%.
It seems to me there are two good methods for accomplishing this: Conscription and Supporters Volunteering. Our current system, by not using the first and effectively dissuading the second, is the worst of both worlds.
To let someone quit right after technical training (quit at any time) would be pretty damn dumb
But we already do lots of that, like that 'school' thing I keep hearing about. If the big disadvantage is improving the technical training of our private workforce, I'm not feeling it. That's something we should probably be doing regardless of how our army is structured.
The mandate is set low because when it was set higher, they couldn't recruit or maintain enough people to meet it.
The mandate was lowered because Bush I and Clinton both figured with the end of the Cold War, we needed a smaller military.
They're already offering huge sign-up bonuses to maintain the current army level.
And in a competitive job market, many companies are doing this to recruit and retain the best and the brightest. When the air transportation industry was booming in the 90's, the Air Force had to give bonuses to pilots to keep them in uniform. There is a huge investment in our military, once you get past basic training.
What makes sense, giving out a re-enlist bonus to retain someone, or training a new recruit?
If you wonder why we do not intervene there as we would in Iraq, Iran or North Korea... World markets are not as dependent on those regions for oil and they do not have nuclear shit?
And so, let's say that we do give up oil. Never mind about nuclear, because it's only weapons, and reactors that produce weapons grade material, that we care about.
What reason would anyone have to intervene in the places I mentioned? Are you saying we shouldn't intervene at all?? So we should just let genocide and tyranny go unchecked, and unopposed?
MM wrote: No European country can currently project force much beyond its own borders
France does to a limited extent, notably in Africa. Britain and Germany possibly could given the right motivation. France continues to maintain an aircraft carrier and I believe the UK just made arrangements to buy one.
Also as noted, the European market is, ironically, rife with fine-quality arms manufacturers. Two familiar examples: the US military carries a Beretta 9mm as a standard sidearm, and any time you see a SWAT team carrying something special that isn't an M16 rifle, it's probably the H&K MP5 9mm submachinegun.
Anony-Mouse is right that Megan overstates the case against Europe here. Britain and France both are currently projecting force beyond their borders, and there are several quality European arms manufacturers. The French and British manufacture their own fighter planes, for example, Mirages and Hurricanes.
Halving military spending would not necessarily halve effective capability. Keep the ships, subs, planes and missiles while cutting back on the sys op nanny state to the world hallway monitor wetdream troops of the powerpoint poindexter pontificators. Fold half of the Army into a Marine Corp on steroids\ and scrap the other half.
The savings should be poured into an energy Manhattan Project with a goal to tell the House of Saud to pound sand within 10-years.
Protect the seas, the sky and our property for free trade. Use economic power rather than boots on the ground. Only use boots for limited blitz operations. Leave the humanitarian aid to UN and/or EU.
"Worrying about the ones you lose when war breaks out is exactly wrong when you need 300% of the pre-existing troops not 95%."
Why do we need to maintain such a large standing army? Why not maintain a reasonable sized army, large enough to repel an initial invasion? Our Navy/Airforce are a deterrent from a conventional invasion anyways. How many countries could put boots on this side of the ocean in numbers that would be a threat? We don't need to be ready for WWIII at all times.
In the event of a large scale conflict you draft soldiers into service. If it's an invasion I'm sure we'd need very little prodding to join up in defense of the country.
In the event of a large scale conflict you draft soldiers into service. If it's an invasion I'm sure we'd need very little prodding to join up in defense of the country.
And those joining in that time of need would be little better then cannon-fodder. Seeing as how the need would be immediate, and basic training takes 9-weeks training. Specialized training takes 6 months to a year.
So, maybe they would need a little prodding to be pushed to the front lines.
Imagine Europe if the US were not a global hegemon. I imagine Russia engaging in a rapid military buildup, taking back some of its lost territories, and wielding a great deal of influence over the ones on its new borders that it did not formally control.
If you can imagine this, then why do you imagine that it is NOT happening RIGHT NOW? With our military obviously and famously bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, what do you think prevents Russia from simply embarking on the military conquests your describe?
Russia is not engaging in a "rapid military buildup" because the people of Russia will not support it. Once the central authority of the Soviet Union was no longer enforceable by means of the Red Army, the collapse of the Soviet Union was assured. All Reagan did was finally kick over the whole rotten edifice after it had disintegrated from within; the real work of destroying the Soviet Union was most likely done by Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement in Poland. (And personally I think a case could be made for Stalin and Beria, who combined to destroy the worker-liberation spirit that drove the Russian Revolution in the first place.) While we may quibble with the extent to which modern Russia is a "democracy" I think it's clear that the will of the people does ultimately prevail there, if in a nebulous and indistinct way. And it would seem that the Russian people are not particularly interested in global conquest at the moment.
I don't know about cutting our military spending in half. That's too glib a statement; there are benefits to having the ability to project force worldwide and that capability should not reduced by blindly cutting for the sake of cutting. At the same time, massive investments in new whiz-bang Buck Rogers technologies like the F-22, which cost tens of billions of dollars per unit to fill a need that doesn't necessarily exist (which enemy airplanes are currently superior to our existing F-15 and F-14 in performance?) are simply wasteful and should be closely scrutinized. I think it is probable that defense spending could be cut significantly without damaging our capabilities.
The F-22 costs "tens of billions of dollars per unit"? Not even close. According to Wikipedia the cost is 339 million per unit, with a marginal cost of 120 million if we decide to order more. That's a lot of money, but nowhere near one billion each, much less "tens of billions". (Unless you're counting the price in Zimbabwean dollars, in which case the unit price is in the quintillions, or soon will be.)
France and Britain are, AFAIK, currently projecting force beyond their own borders because the US navy and airforce give them safe passage to do so. Being able to project force beyond your borders is not just a matter of having soldiers; you also have to be able to move and supply them. My understanding is that in the event of a shooting war, without US support, British and French soldiers would largely be stuck in Britain and France.
I don't know if cutting in half is the right number but I definitely think we should cut the budget. I personally would freeze the budget in nominal terms and refocus on protecting US soil and protecting free trade on the high seas.
I would definitely gradualy close bases in South Korea, Germany, and Japan and gradually remove ourselves from the middle east. I think it is time that our allies start pulling thier own weight and drop the convenient pacifist tone.
We could keep hte power to project some force on a targeted basis as needed though the Navy and Marines.
"And those joining in that time of need would be little better then cannon-fodder. Seeing as how the need would be immediate, and basic training takes 9-weeks training. Specialized training takes 6 months to a year."
And a strong naval and airforce presence wouldn't at least give us a 6 months - 1 year warning before troops start invading? Which foreign military is within even 5 years of being able to do this? Even if they could get some troops here, could they get enough troops, supplies and heavy armor to make a serious attempt at defeating the current US Army?
I'm not saying that we should cut the budget in 1/2, but we certainly don't need 3X the troops we have now as a standing army to defend the country.
Dr Weevil is correct about the cost of the F-22. It is currently the premier fighter aircraft in the world. Easily capable of handling 6-12 of the next best at a time easily. As for comparables for the F-15, F-16. Try Eurofighter, SU-27, Su-37, Mig-29, Mig-31, Mirage 2000+, Typhon, Chinese S-10. All coming to a tyrant near you. We cannot win a war of attrition and need 10-30 to 1 exchange rates to win. If we trade at the 1 to 1 or 2 to 1 we lose. Its that simple, we have gone the quality, spend bucks vs people, vs quantity route and can't go back.
Draftees would be useless, actually a negative, for at least a year until trained. Again quality vs. quantity. We have a very high-tech military and WWII style infantry is next to useless. Or has everyone forgot about Gulf War I? or how fast we overrun all of Iraq the second time?
Lastly, France and Britain, except for special forces sized units (i.e. VERY small) have almost no force projection capability without US airlift, sealift and logistics. Especially outside Europe. The rest of NATO can't do anything outside their borders without US assistance. None of the NATO forces in Afghanistan got there under their own power. America took them there. Same with our Allies in Iraq. The Western World has relied on the US Navy and Air Force for protection and its safety for decades. If we pulled back the world will get uglier and more dangerous very fast.
Our entire military is much smaller than it was just 20 years ago. Even smaller compared to the 1950s or 1960s. Consolidating out of Europe would probably be smart. And it would also force the rest of NATO to really get serious about their part in the commono defense. The world is a very dangerous place and we the coming resource crunch will become even more dangerous.
"France and Britain are, AFAIK, currently projecting force beyond their own borders because the US navy and airforce give them safe passage to do so."
Are you implying that the French and British required U.S. escorts to send their troops to their respective recent missions in Africa? I wouldn't be surprised if the French and Brits relied on U.S. logistics to get them to their Nato mission in Afghanistan, but they seem to be able to project force OK with their solo missions.
And a strong naval and airforce presence wouldn't at least give us a 6 months - 1 year warning before troops start invading? Which foreign military is within even 5 years of being able to do this? Even if they could get some troops here, could they get enough troops, supplies and heavy armor to make a serious attempt at defeating the current US Army?
Jordan - You're the one that created the premise:
In the event of a large scale conflict you draft soldiers into service. If it's an invasion I'm sure we'd need very little prodding to join up in defense of the country.
I was responding to that premise. Now you're adding caveats to it.
China could possibly do it, because they are the only near-peer in the military sphere. They are investing in ground, air, and navel forces. I really don't think we're going to get into a large scale conflict with them.
I'm for reducing the Dept of Defense, but only with the creation of the Dept of Everything Else. Because, someone has to be ready to plug the gaps. Whether it's responding to a natural disaster, like the tsunami a couple years ago, acting as peace-keepers in places like Somalia, Darfur, Rwanda, training local troops in counter-terrorism, or helping build roads, and schools. These are missions for which the military shouldn't be the primary labor, currently they are. The State Dept doesn't do that either if security is an issue.
No, I'm implying that, AFAIK, the French and British couldn't move any troops without the help of the American navy and airforce. It's hard to fly a tank commercial.
Fred,
No their not. They can move SMALL amounts of troops into basically unopposed areas (i.e. Africa). They can't move large amounts of troops and equipment except with the US. Its been that way since the Berlin Wall fell and NATO basically demobilized. You can't ship tanks commercial, but the C-17 can fly them in. Thanks Megan.
And again its SMALL forces they are moving. The British 1st Para Div going to Afghanistan will be moved by US, not British, airlift.
Meagan - I think you are incorrect. They British and French do have inherent heavy lift capability. Now, that may only allow for limited operations.
And if you research it, some (not sure how much) of our logistics capability is leased on an as-needed basis. Troops have been sent to the theater on commercial aircraft. Same with cargo going on commercial shipping.
I still think your point is valid. We provide a lot of the security blanket for much of the world. It's past time for the great powers to pony up their share.
MM:
Military reformers have been urging dramatic reduction in defense outlay since the very height of the Cold War but, always, in connection with doctrinal, procurement, budgetary and organizational reforms like ending Brazilian rank-inflation and the GOCO (government-owned, contractor-operated) system of Stalinist defence production.
The main argument in those circles today are between those as favor private military contractors and a long-term hire ("all volunteer") "professional" military on doctrinal and ideological grounds and those, of us, as question this on constitutional grounds -- but are, otherwise, usually trapped into reluctantly defending the status quo against half-baked and piecemeal "innovations" like the PMC's in Iraq.
I, for one, favor the Roman/Swiss/Israeli system of universal military training (UMT) and national service obligation (NSO).
This would be tied to a universal franchise as well as to public finance, but not control, of private, even religious, educational and hospital facilities.
I can really dig and understand your idea of cutting each and all of national public health, education, and defense budget outlay in half, while actually getting more, much more of each.
UMT/NSO is mischaracterized as "the draft".
But, the draft -- conscription -- is a civil-war (first Confederate) failure-mode of anglophile military institutions. Those institutions have never in our history included a "well regulated" militia. They have failed repeatedly, in many respects, and facilitated the outbreak of war that could not be completed without quickly drafting a lot of poorly equipped, trained, and commanded lads.
==
Federalists and Republicans never agreed to have a well regulated militia, as it would have involved arming and freeing black men. We never had a well regulated militia, even when we -- the South, mostly -- had plenty of public/private "dragoons" and other costumed racists optimized for chasing runaway slaves or suppressing "race riots" or even trade unions.
These militia had to be dismounted, disarmed, and retrained to actually fight it a war with other than catastrophic results, yes, even the Army of Northern Virginia's hallowed First Brigade. And, no, gun-ownership is a related but different question.
If we had a well regulated militia, we would export, rather than import, small arms (like Switzerland). We would all have full function cell-phones and internet connections (like Finland).
We would have more amnesty, and less immigration or sexually-transmitted disease.
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The economic efficiency of a militia derives from providing efficient and non-sectarian foundations for some public -- communitarian and libertarian -- provision of educational, health and hygiene, and professional or ethical development.
A militia can be designed to surge a huge number of second- and third-rate forces just like the regular military or to provide diverse support and combat formations for regular military.
(My fantasy is the "Flying Company" of, "Low Rider", light cavalry from the 1st Regiment, "Juan Seguin", of the Texas State Militia.)
(The Swiss have whole regiments of mountain-bike mounted infantry, in addition to muleteers and, ... well, probably no more than ceremonial pikes and cross-bows.)
Today, militia would be an efficient and effectuve use of public funds mainly because it would not entail racial discrimination or just duplication of facilities. (Black men were never integrated into the old pre-civil war militia, which, in any case, were regulated ... poorly.)
The Swiss have a Ministry of "Defence, Civil Protection, and Sport". The Israeli military obligation extends to women and is considered the foundation of equal political and professional rights for women and some non-Jews.
The US had and still needs a "merchant marine", as do most other countries with militia-type institutions. This generally includes one or more national "flag" operators of aircraft of marine vessels of various sorts. Most of these compete well in civilian markets with some, but not much, government subsidy.
Finally, the US may well need "mercenaries" for foreign duties. These should probably consist of volunteer, specialized state-militia "companies" rented-out to the federal government or the UNO, a Swiss company still having the Vatican gig. It could also entail a "foreign legion" type unit with foreign soldiers under national command.
In any case, I rather prefer Swiss innovation in financial enterprise combined with non-creative accounting compared to our scaling-up, rolling-over, and compounding public/private/banana finance with creative accounting.
Scaling-up and farming-out Armies "of the Potomac" and "of Northern Virginia" but nationalizing them while moving them "off the books" of the federal government seems like a bad idea, Cold War or no Cold War, perfect nonsense today.
So, you see, I am a "damn liberal", not a hawk, not even a warrior, but a patriot, an economist in the mold of Will Clayton or Lord Keynes, no not, Larry Kudlow.
In any case, there are robust alterntaives to what we have come to and are degenerating into. It takes a little thought to get there from here, but the intellectual and institutional heavy lifting was done a long time ago.
For reference, UK's naval heavy lift capabilities.
Where-as, the US has:
Military Sealift Command currently operates 118 non-combatant, civilian-crewed ships worldwide. In addition, the command has access to 49 other ships that are kept in reduced operating status, ready to be activated if needed.
OK, I was wrong about the unit cost of an F-22. I found what looks like a good breakdown of it here:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-22-cost.htm
I still maintain that it is an expensive investment even at $312 million per plane, when we are talking about buying dozens of them (20 in "Lot 7" alone) to fill a need that does not necessarily exist. And that being certain we are spending our money wisely is likely to result in reductions in defense spending without adversely impacting our defense capability.
As for comparables for the F-15, F-16. Try Eurofighter, SU-27, Su-37, Mig-29, Mig-31, Mirage 2000+, Typhon, Chinese S-10.
My understanding is the F-22 was designed as a replacement for the F-15, which was itself based on the Soviet MiG-25 (which a defector flew to Japan and turned over to us). But is the F-15 clearly inferior to all, or even ANY, of the above types? Especially when combined with the skill levels of the pilots we are likely to be confronting?
If we trade at the 1 to 1 or 2 to 1 we lose.
Against the Chinese Air Force perhaps (and I'm not convinced that even their newest fighters are comparable to the F-15). Against the Iranian Air Force? Or Al-Qaeda? That's what I mean by a need that doesn't necessarily exist. If the F-22 is something that fills a legitimate need, that's one thing. Last I heard, Osama didn't have many MiG-31s. Neither does Iran. Russia is nominally an ally if we would quit trying to piss them off. China has economic reasons not to go to war with us. So who are our F-22s going to be eliminating at 10 to 1 ratios?
Which begs the question*: If a volunteer military is such a great idea, why not also let them quit at any time?
Perhaps because they signed a contract that specifies service for an amount of time? Perhaps because training can take large amounts of money and even more importantly of time. I signed a 10 year service commitment when I came into the Air Force as a pilot. However by the time you add up the time it takes to complete OTS*, ASBC*, UPT*, training in whatever aircraft I'm assigned, along with breaks in training as I transition to the next thing ... we're talking about approximately 2.5 years.
*OTS - Officer Training School
*ASBC - Air and Space Basic Course
*UPT - Undergraduate Pilot Training
I, for one, favor the Roman/Swiss/Israeli system of universal military training (UMT) and national service obligation (NSO).
UMT/NSO is mischaracterized as "the draft".
I don't see how that's a mischaracterization. It's mandatory national service, essentially meaning everyone is forced to serve for a period. How is that not effectively a draft.
I don't object to it, either. I did not volunteer for the military because I knew I would hate it, and would probably end up being kicked out; if there were a draft I'd probably end up in the stockade. That doesn't mean that it's not a good idea. The problem with the draft is when you allow exceptions due to wealth and privilege; people should not be allowed to buy their way out of service to their country, which is really service to their fellow citizens. A national service requirement would go a long way towards impressing on people their responsibilities as citizens to be at least somewhat informed and interested in what their government is doing in their name. And the experience of having served would perforce broaden people's experiences; having seen and lived with people from other cultural strata might just instill some respect for the problems others face in their daily lives. It would penetrate the "bubble" of the wealthy and privileged in ways that almost certainly would be beneficial to society as a whole. President Clinton was a proponent of national service, at least rhetorically, if you'll recall; it's not an illiberal position to hold.
liberalrob,
You're overlooking the fact that those F-15s are ancient. We've been flying them since the mid 1970s. And its one of our newer ones. The Air Force is still flying trainers, bombers, reconaissance planes, transports aircraft, and tankers that date to the Eisenhower administration. Aircraft get more and more expensive to maintain as they get older.
Also, the Air Force is getting smaller. Thus if we are going to maintain the same level of strength, then quality must go up. Since we already have the best pilots on the planet, this means new planes.
"My understanding is the F-22 was designed as a replacement for the F-15, which was itself based on the Soviet MiG-25 (which a defector flew to Japan and turned over to us). But is the F-15 clearly inferior to all, or even ANY, of the above types? Especially when combined with the skill levels of the pilots we are likely to be confronting?"
The F-15 is not based on the MiG-25. It was built in response to misinterpreted intelligence about the Mig-25.
The F-15 is still clearly superior to most of the fighters mentioned above as its rivals (with a kill ratio of 100+ to zero). The exception would be the more advanced versions of the Su-27 series, which might rival it, but are largely untested. The need for lopsided victories decreases when you consider only the topline of possible hostile fighter aircraft. There are only about 1000 of the Su 27,30,37 fighters in the world,compared to 500+ US F-15s and 300 or so F/A-18s. True, there are 1000s of MiG 19s, 21s, 25s etc, but they are essentially flying coffins compared to the top line fighters.
You must also factor in the enormous advantage that the US has in SAMs, radar, anti-radar missiles, spy satellites etc.
I did not volunteer for the military because I knew I would hate it, and would probably end up being kicked out; if there were a draft I'd probably end up in the stockade.
And this is a fine argument for not having a draft/national service. You'd also get the same sort of thing in the Peace Corps or whatever the civilian option of national service was. It wouldn't be as bad, because the discipline would be significantly laxer. However, you'd still have lots of young people being very resentful of the fact that their government just took 1-2 years of their life away. Some of them would presumably cause trouble, go AWOL, and so on.
I'm sympathetic to your idea that service would benefit those who served (i know i've benefited). My personal opinion is that the detriment to the military would outweigh the benefits to the society.
Perhaps we could achieve your goals of teaching "people their responsibilities as citizens" through civics classes in high school?
The F-15 is not based on the MiG-25. It was built in response to misinterpreted intelligence about the Mig-25.
That, to me, is equivalent to "based on." It's a distinction without much of a difference.
You're overlooking the fact that those F-15s are ancient.
Does it matter? Are they falling out of the skies due to decrepitude? Are they obsolete and incapable of the mission they are assigned? If not, then the imperative to replace them would seem to be less. Just because we can spend more money and get an even shinier toy doesn't mean it's necessarily a good investment.
Look, I wasn't trying to single out the F-22 as the source of all ills. I was trying to use it as an example of something we spent a lot of money on that maybe we didn't need to. If there's not a real threat out there that the F-22 is a solution for and the F-15 isn't capable of dealing with, then the expense isn't really justified. And if we used that kind of analysis on all the various items we are spending the Defense budget on, we might find we could reduce it significantly and still have the same capability we have now.
I believe in a strong military. I want our soldiers to have the best and be the best; as volunteers to fight and die for the rest of us we owe it to them. But I also want to be smart about it.
Perhaps we could achieve your goals of teaching "people their responsibilities as citizens" through civics classes in high school?
My high school civics class was "taught" by a football coach; my best friend and I got A's while sitting in the back of the class and playing Ace of Aces the entire hour. It was not exactly a rigorously taught seminar on the theory of civil society and the American system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Aces
Liberalrob:
No they are not falling out of the sky from decrepitude, but only because the air force has rules about flying planes beyond their service life without proper maintenance.
High performance aircraft require maintenance. No matter how well designed, they have some sort of projected service life. IIRC, about 16000 hours for an F-15C. After that, the level of maintenance required is more akin to building a new airplane from scratch then repairing an existing one. Even if you do rebuild it you have to spend a lot more time on maintenance then before. More hours being repaired, less flying. More hours in the depot for major maintenance. It gets progressively more expensive for progressively less capability.
Seriously man, I don't get why this is so complicated. Airplanes are like anything else, as they get older and get used more they deteriorate and eventually need to be replaced; no matter how well maintained.
And it's the same thing for ships and submarines and tanks and everything else. The US military has a lot of equipment, and even just replacing it on a 30-40 year replacement cycle costs a lot of money every year. You can either pay it, or accept an ongoing reduction in capability.
Are they falling out of the skies? No, not yet. But old planes have a nasty habit of doing that. The idea is to replace them before it gets to that point. Something else to consider is that the F-22 has taken in excess of a decade to go from drawing board to operational units. So if we wait until the F-15 is obsolete, then it's too late. The F-22 is also significantly less vulnerable, so if we go to war we'll lose fewer of them. That fact should be figured into the cost-benefit analysis somehow.
In fairness, I willingly admit my bias as a guy who hopes to fly those "shiny toys" about a year and a half from now.
My high school civics class ... It was not exactly a rigorously taught seminar on the theory of civil society and the American system.
I agree that civics education needs alot of work. Maybe something along the lines of the effort that went into math and science after Sputnik. Of course that presumes that the country could agree on our "responsibilities as citizens", which may or may not be possible.
Also, that Aces of Aces sounds way more fun than the Tetris I played on my TI-82 back in high school.
liberalrob wrote: That, to me, is equivalent to "based on." It's a distinction without much of a difference.
If that's how you view it, expect to lose lots of arguments without a clue as to why.
"Based on" is generally understood as something that derives directly from the original. The F-15 did not come about because of a close examination of a MiG-25, or through intercepted blueprints, or anything of the kind. It was not "based on" the MiG-25 in any meaningful sense of the word.
Simply put, the F-15 was designed because the visual intelligence on the MiG-25 suggested that it was intended to be a highly maneuverable fighter, rather than what it actually was -- a high-speed intercepter with only limited maneuverability. The USAF responded with "Oh, crap, we need something that can outmaneuver whatever that thing is that the Soviets are producing", and solicited proposals from defense contractors for a highly-maneuverable, high-speed dogfighter.
Armed with money, the winning bidder (McDonnel-Douglas) then designed and produced two prototypes, one of which became the final form of the F-15.
Ok guys, this is getting silly. I have 24 years in unifrom and flew B-52 and E-3 AWACS as a pilot. Had all the staff tours. So some basics
All the current fighter aircraft will age out in the next 10-20 years. They need replaced. OPerations in Iraq and flying CAP in te US our just putting more 'age' on he jets. MichaelB is right the planes get economically impossible to fix and it becomes cheaper to replace. The KC-135s are definitly past this point and the C-141 was way past (and dangerous to fly) by the time it was replaced by the C-17.
Now for the fighters. The F-4 was not paticualrly liked by all the services. Loss exchange ratios in Vietnam stunk and the F-4s were looking at being equaled in capability by the Soviets in the air. A new plane was required. For the Navy you got the F-14 (Remember Topgun). The Air Force wanted a cheap low cost small fighter but the program morhped into the F-15, and the high-low mix came into being with the F-16 becoming the low part of the mix. Mig-25 had nothing to do with this. BY the mid-eighties these were the primary fighters aircraft. The F-14s aged out quickly and the Navy commissined the F-18 A/B/C/D versions. The last of the F-14s left the inventory this year. The F-14/15/16/18 are all 4th generation fighters. So are the Mig-29, SU-27/35/37. The F-22 is a 5th generation fighter combining stealth and a lot of very high-tech equipment. It easily wipes out all its adversaries even outnumbered 6 to 1 vs. F-15 and F-16s in dog-fights out at the Nellis ranges (with US pilots on both sides). Becuase of cost the AF can only buy a few (I beleive currently around 200 planned) and they will stretch the remaining F-15s has long as possible. The F-35, only available in numbers around 2014-2016, will replace the F-16 as the F-16s age out. The F-35 is another 5th generation airraft and will replce the F-16, all Marine Corp air (F-18s and Harriers), and the F-18s. The Navy is buying F/A-18 E/F/Gs (probably a 4.5 generation aircraft)to cover the hole in aircraft available as the A-D models age out, until the F-35C models are available.
Currently the US has only the F-16Blk60 (sold to Qutar), F-18 E/F & G models, and the F-22 in production. F-35 has just flow the first production A model and will have the first STOVL 'B' model in the air shortly. F-35 flyaway cost will be cheaper than the F-16Blk60s and it is a order-of-magnitude leap in capabilities over the F-16.
The bottom line is we go for quality vs. quantity and cannot afford a 1 to 1 trade. Thes planes are for a Major Theater conflict vs a near peer. Not for OBL - where the old BUFFasaurus will do quite nicely. We do need them so we can beat down countries like Iran, North Korea, etc in days. Shortens the war, we win, and reduces losses on BOTH sides. Gulf War I is an example of this as was the overrunning of Iraq in '03. The major combat operations ended quickly and decisively in our favor. And I would like to keep it that way.
And training differences can be overcome with $ and time. The Indian Air Force cleaned our clocks a few years back by pitting highly trained Mig-29 pilots against our F-15s in an excercise. They traded us 1 to 1 and sometime even worse. Admittedly they were probably flying their handpicked best against our line units, but its a bad omen. F-22 eliminates that part of the equation.
guinipigfury - UPT is the single most important year of your life and AF career. Don't fuck it up! :)
Hope that helps.
Trying my best not to. I've made it through Phase I, only 48 weeks to go!
Holy crap! Looking at the FAQs for UPT make graduate school sound pretty easy.
UPT is the equivelent of a year residency as a surgeon - just without the fine motor skills and you get a little more sleep. But if you mess up really big you die, not the patient! I had two close encounters during UPT compared with only 3 during the entire rest of my career.
Oh and BTW, your chances of making Colonel and general are directly linked to how well you perform at UPT, becuase that determines the aircraft you get. Thus ou decide who is on track to be CEO of a major medical center when your 23.(And the skill set is totally different for the two jobs!)
guineapigfury - Get a fighter, if not that then a bomber. Not many generals from the non-combat arms.
Good Luck!
buffpilot: Why exactly don't we buy MiG-29s? They look pretty freaking great. I know the F-22 money goes to US companies, but couldn't we talk to the Russians about licensing the MiG for production? The cost savings would be gi-normous. That could get us through the 7 years until the F-35 comes online, right?
In terms of the actual excellence of the F-22...I've seen interviews with pilots who said they flew exercises against it and one F-22 would take out over a dozen F-15s without a single loss. "It positively defeats your attempts to lock a weapon system on it," I believe the quote was. But is this really the case? It just seems too complimentary to the weapons manufacturer to allow to go without suspicion. Is it really true, in your opinion, that you could put up a couple of F-22s and expect them to take out one or two dozen F-15s?
brooksfoe-
There is way too much ego in the fighter pilot world for there to be this level of consistancy in the adversary reports as to the F-22's effectiveness. Many of these 'bandit' pilots are facing UAV assignments as their older aircraft are retired, and it would be easy to pick on the new, well funded kd on the block if there was any way to do so.
Currently, however, the most kills by an F-22 in a single misssion was 9 - it only carries 8 missiles plus the gun. Although it's a great dogfighter, visual range combat takes away some of the benefits of stealth and speed.
Finally, re: buying an existing aircraft - the AF is being asked to be able to insure air supremecy just about anywhere, on a few days/weeks notice, when the nearest base could be thousands of miles away. That means that
Should have previewed-
This means that only ~20% of our fleet might make the fight due to air refueling shortages, ramp space, etc, while the adversary can keep launching until they run out of planes, pilots, or fuel. We can't be just a little better, but need to be overwhelmingly better. We can debate if this should be our policy goal, but for now, it's the one the AF has been given to solve.
Why nobody bothers competing with us...well, Europe & most of East Asia don't have to, since we basically underwrite their security. As for the rest of the world, they either lack the economic/technical/industrial base that modern warfare requires, or aren't willing, or (in the case of China, Russia, and possibly others) biding their time while doing buildups on installment plan.
Cutting back the military...I think Hanson's analysis has it backwards: he decides on his conclusion, and then tries to shoehorn geopolitical & military realities to fit. Before you try "right-sizing" the military, you must decide what you want your military to do, which means deciding on grand strategy. Do we want to maintain an American hegemony? Do we want to do offshore balancing? Do we want a Monroe Doctrine redux, with America dominant only in our own hemisphere? Do we want a capability to "project power" into the Eastern Hemisphere, for humanitarian, nonproliferation, or other reasons? Do we envision maintaining overseas alliances (that we can exploit for manpower, material, bases, and a buffer zone)? Do we want to keep the seas safe for American shipping; or would a capability of sinking any hostile invasion fleet suffice?
European military potential...I give a mixed review. As others have pointed out, they do have pretty good weapons & equipment; and of course they also have some industrial base. Trained personnel would probably be a bottleneck; OTOH, military training is (to some extent) fungible - one could conceive of Blackwater, MPRI, etc. serving as trainers even if the US military refused to. Still, it would take a while, and of course the only real test of military training is combat. High government spending could be the biggest problem; I honestly don't know whether European populaces would accept Welfare cutbacks in the name of national defense.
As for critical resources...if one believes that resource suppliers will _never_ engage in politically-motivated (albeit economically irrational) embargoes; and if the US continues keeping international sea lanes open; then it might not be much of a problem. If either - particularly the former - is inapplicable, however, then Europe would need to find some large expeditionary forces very quickly.
All the current fighter aircraft will age out in the next 10-20 years. They need replaced.
So buy some new ones. Have we forgotten how to make an F-15? And are they not cheaper than F-22s?
Thes planes are for a Major Theater conflict vs a near peer.
Precisely my point. What are the odds of such a conflict in the next ten or twenty years? Is China really so militaristic that it is on the brink of launching such an effort? What would it gain them, that they are not already able to win through diplomacy and economic power? For that matter, they're going to start working on the first permanent Moon base fairly soon, if they haven't already. Why fight wars on Earth when you can just go land on the Moon and get new resources that way? What other "near peers" are we likely to get into a major war with? Russia? Like I said, nominally our ally, and they also have little reason to embark on new wars of conquest. What other "near peers" are left to threaten us militarily? India, with whom we have significant cultural and economic ties? Is the Indian Navy going to show up off the coast of California and start launching an amphibious operation to conquer Los Angeles?
Believe me, I understand the appeal of buying the newest, shiniest equipment. The F-22 is a beautiful piece of machinery. But tell me this: assuming the rest of the world's equipment progresses little in the next ten years, are you going to come back then and tell me we just have to have this new F-23 (or whatever it would be called) that is even shinier than the F-22 and just happens to cost twice as much? Does it ever reach a point where we say, enough?
"So buy some new ones. Have we forgotten how to make an F-15? And are they not cheaper than F-22s?"
That might be a good argument for not developing a new fighter, but we're past that point. We've paid the up-front costs of development, >$50 billion, already. Now, the increased utility of an F-22 probably makes it a better deal than the F-15, despite having a marginal cost of about twice as much.
F-15's are cheaper than F-22's, even with the latter's 6-1 productivity multiple?
I'm turning in my car for a horse and buggy. And my lightbulbs for candles. And my indoor plumbing for a well, bucket, and outhouse. Forget about productivity, I'll just look at the inputs from now on. What was i thinking?
liberalrob, thanks for your intellectual leadership on this.
You laugh, but if (when) we run out of oil my first thought is "what happens to airplanes?"
No point in having an F-22 if there's no Jet-A to put in its tanks (or whatever they run on).
Productivity multiple? What the? Is an F-22 6 times cheaper to make than an F-15?
I would like to say "Thank you!" to Buffpilot and Guineapigfury for making this a very interesting thread. It is a big plus when at least some of the people commenting actually know what they are talking about!
liberalrob, We actually HAVE forgotten how to make an F-15. And a B-2 and C-141, B-52, F-4, B-1, etc.
Once a line shuts down, the engineers disperse, the technical workforce goes away, sub-contract firms go out of business or turn to do something else, but most importantly the machines, very specialized machines, get chopped up for scrap and sent away. Even with all the engineering drawings available, making new F-15s would be like starting from scratch. Plus they are running off intel 8086 chips - which have to be rebuilt etc. IN 1999 Northrup submitted a proposal to build new B-2 bombers. Northrup said it would cost $12 Billion to just restart the assembly line. Plus then another $500 milion per plane. My bet, from my days on the air staff, start up would have been around $18-20 Billion and cost per plane in the $700 million range. At best.
Njorl is right, we have already sunk the development cost into the F-22 (and F-35 for that matter). Once into production the cost per next unit of plane continues to drop.(especially once the line matures into full rate production). Going backward is not cost effective. To be honest of you want tomake the cost cheaper you should run the factories 24/7. Drives unit cost WAY down, but drives yearly budget costs up (which congress won't fund.
"Should we cut our defense spending in half?"
No. We should raise it, adjusted for inflation, to 1990 levels.
Having recently worked on a project where we refurbished and modified a piece of 20 year old equipment that is much, much simpler than a fighter plane, I will concur that building older stuff that you haven't built in a while costs more than you think.
We actually had old drawings and our current equipment is an evolution of the old equipment but we still had problems with finding parts, documentation discrepancies, changes in standards (safety, testing, etc...). And we weren't even trying to build from scratch.
Trying to build a fighter plane that was designed 20 years ago would be a nightmare. You couldn't just swap a similar part out for one that wasn't available, you'd have to either make an identical part from scratch or modify the plane design to accomodate the similar part. This would have to be done many times. Even a small change like a connector size or shape could require significant time and money to accomodate.
Personally, I want the US military to remain the strongest in the world by enough of a margin that no other country would consider going to war with us.
EI