[Americas Costly, Dysfunctional Approach to Security Is Making Us
Ever Less Safe]
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WHAT PRICE “DEFENSE”?  
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William D. Hartung
January 17, 2023
Tom Dispatch [[link removed]]

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_ America's Costly, Dysfunctional Approach to Security Is Making Us
Ever Less Safe _

, Reuters/iStockphoto/The Fiscal Times

 

Late last month, President Biden signed a bill that clears the way for
$858 billion
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in Pentagon spending and nuclear weapons work at the Department of
Energy in 2023.  That’s far more
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Washington anted up for military purposes at the height of the Korean
or Vietnam wars or even during the peak years of the Cold War. In
fact, the $80 billion increase from the 2022 Pentagon budget is in
itself more
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the military budgets of any country other than China. Meanwhile, a
full accounting of all spending justified in the name of national
security, including for homeland security, veterans’ care, and more,
will certainly exceed $1.4 trillion
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those figures don’t even include the more than $50 billion
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aid Washington has already dispatched to Ukraine, as well as to
frontline NATO allies, in response to the Russian invasion of that
country.

The assumption is that when it comes to spending on the military and
related activities, more is always better. 

There’s certainly no question that one group will benefit in a major
way from the new spending surge: the weapons industry. If recent
experience is any guide, more than half
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that $858 billion will likely go to private firms. The top five
contractors alone — Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General
Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman — will split
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$150 billion and $200 billion in Pentagon contracts. Meanwhile,
they’ll pay their CEOs, on average, more than $20 million
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a year and engage in billions of dollars in stock buybacks
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designed to boost their share prices. 

Such “investments” are perfectly designed to line the pockets of
arms-industry executives and their shareholders. However, they do
little or nothing to help defend this country or its allies.

EXCESSIVE SPENDING DOESN’T ALIGN WITH THE PENTAGON’S OWN STRATEGY

The Pentagon’s long-awaited National Defense Strategy
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released late last year, is an object lesson in how _not_ to make
choices among competing priorities.  It calls for preparing to win
wars against Russia or China, engage in military action against Iran
or North Korea, and continue to wage a Global War on Terror that
involves stationing 200,000
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troops overseas, while taking part in counterterror operations
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in at least 85 countries, according to figures compiled by the Brown
University Costs of War project.

President Biden deserves credit for ending America’s 20-year fiasco
in Afghanistan, despite opposition from significant portions of the
Washington and media establishments.  Unsurprisingly enough, mistakes
were made in executing the military withdrawal from that country, but
they pale in comparison to the immense economic costs and human
consequences of that war and the certainty of ongoing failure, had it
been allowed to continue indefinitely.

Still, it’s important to note that its ending by no means marked the
end of the era of this country’s forever wars.  Biden himself
underscored this point in his speech
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the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. “Today,” he said, “the
terrorist threat has metastasized beyond Afghanistan. So, we are
repositioning our resources and adapting our counterterrorism posture
to meet the threats where they are now significantly higher: in South
Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.”

In keeping with Biden’s pledge, U.S. military involvement in Iraq
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Syria
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and Somalia
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remains ongoing. Meanwhile, the administration continues to focus its
Africa policy on military aid and training
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to the detriment of non-military support for nations facing the
challenges not just of terrorist attacks, but of corruption, human
rights abuses, and the devastation of climate change
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Consider it ironic, then, that a Pentagon budget crafted by this
administration and expanded upon by Congress isn’t even faintly
aligned with that department’s own strategy. Buying $13 billion
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carriers vulnerable to modern high-speed missiles; buying staggeringly
expensive F-35 fighter jets unlikely to be usable
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in a great-power conflict; purchasing excess nuclear weapons more
likely to spur than reduce an arms race, while only increasing the
risk of a catastrophic nuclear conflict; and maintaining an Army of
more than 450,000
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active-duty troops that would be essentially irrelevant in a conflict
with China are only the most obvious examples of how bureaucratic
inertia, parochial politics, and corporate money-making outweigh
anything faintly resembling strategic concerns in the budgeting
process.

CONGRESS ONLY COMPOUNDS THE PROBLEM

Congress has only contributed to the already staggering problems
inherent in the Pentagon’s approach by adding $45 billion
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to that department’s over-the-top funding request. Much of it was,
of course, for pork-barrel projects located in the districts of key
representatives. That includes
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funding for extra combat ships and even more F-35s. To add insult to
injury, Congress also prevented
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the Pentagon from shedding older ships and aircraft and so freeing up
funds for investments in crucial areas like cybersecurity and
artificial intelligence.  Instead of an either/or approach involving
some tough (and not-so-tough) choices, the Pentagon and Congress have
collaborated on a both/and approach that will only continue to fuel
skyrocketing military budgets without providing significantly more in
the way of defense.

Ironically, one potential counterweight to Congress’s never-ending
urge to spend yet more on the Pentagon may be the Trumpist Freedom
Caucus in the House of Representatives. Its members recently called
for a freeze
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in government spending, including on the military budget
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At the moment, it’s too early to tell whether such a freeze has any
prospect of passing or, if it does, whether it will even include
Pentagon spending. In 2012, the last time Congress attempted to impose
budget caps
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reduce the deficit, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that
a giant loophole
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was created for the Pentagon. The war budget, officially known as the
Overseas Contingency Operations account, was not subjected to limits
of any sort and so was used to pay for all sorts of pet projects that
had nothing to do with this country’s wars of that moment.

Nor should it surprise you that, in response to the recent chaos in
the House of Representatives, the arms industry has already expanded
its collaboration with the Republicans who are likely to head the
House Armed Services Committee and the House Appropriations
Committee’s defense subcommittee.  And mind you, incoming House
Armed Services Committee chief Mike Rogers (R-AL) received
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over $444,000 from weapons-making companies in the most recent
election cycle, while Ken Calvert (R-CA), the new head of the Defense
Appropriations Committee, followed close behind at $390,000. 
Rogers’s home state includes Huntsville, known as “Rocket City
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concentration of missile producers, and he’ll undoubtedly try to
steer additional funds to firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin that
have major facilities there.  As for Calvert, his Riverside
California district is just an hour from Los Angeles, which received
more than $10 billion
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in Pentagon contracts in fiscal year 2021, the latest year for which
full statistics are available.

That’s not to say that key Democrats have been left out in the cold
either.  Former House Armed Services Committee chair Adam Smith
(D-WA) received
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more than $276,000 from the industry over the same period.  But the
move from Smith to Rogers will no doubt be a step forward for the
weapons industry’s agenda. In 2022, Smith voted against
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more funding than the Pentagon requested to its budget, while Rogers
has been a central advocate
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what might be called extreme funding for that institution. Smith also
raised questions
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about the cost and magnitude of the “modernization” of the U.S.
nuclear arsenal and, even more important, suggested
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that preparing to “win” a war against China was a fool’s errand
and should be replaced by a strategy of deterrence. As he put it:

“I think building our defense policy around the idea that we have to
be able to beat China in an all-out war is wrong. It’s not the way
it’s going to play out. If we get into an all-out war with China,
we’re all screwed anyway. So we better focus on the steps that are
necessary to prevent that. We should get off of this idea that we have
to win a war in Asia with China. What we have to do from a national
security perspective, from a military perspective, is we have to be
strong enough to deter the worst of China’s behavior.”

Expect no such nuances from Rogers, one of the loudest and most
persistent hawks in Congress.

Beyond campaign contributions, the industry’s strongest tool of
influence is the infamous revolving door between government and the
weapons sector. A 2021 report
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Accountability Office found that, between 2014 and 2019, more than
1,700 Pentagon officials left the government to work for the arms
industry. And mind you, that was a conservative estimate, since it
only covered personnel going to the top 14 weapons makers.

Former Pentagon and military officials working for such corporations
are uniquely placed to manipulate the system in favor of their new
employers. They can wield both their connections with former
colleagues in government and their knowledge of the procurement
process to give their companies a leg (or two) up in the competition
for Defense Department funding. As the Project on Government Oversight
has noted in _Brass Parachutes_, a memorable report
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“Without transparency and more effective protections of the public
interest, the revolving door between senior Pentagon officials and
officers and defense contractors may be costing American taxpayers
billions.”

Pushing back against such a correlation of political forces would
require concerted public pressure of a kind as yet unseen.  But
outfits like the Poor People’s Campaign
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#People Over Pentagon [[link removed]] (a network of
arms-control, good-government, environmental, and immigration-reform
groups) are trying to educate the public on what such runaway military
outlays really cost the rest of us.  They are also cultivating a
Congressional constituency that may someday even be strong enough to
begin curbing the worst excesses of such militarized overspending. 
Unfortunately, time is of the essence as the Pentagon’s main budget
soars toward an unprecedented $1 trillion
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A NEW APPROACH?

The Pentagon wastes immense sums of money thanks to cost overruns
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price gouging
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by contractors, and spending on unnecessary weapons programs
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Any major savings from its wildly bloated budget, however, would
undoubtedly also involve a strategy that focused on beginning to
reduce the size of the U.S. armed forces.  Late last year the
Congressional Budget Office outlined
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result in cuts of 10%-15% in its size without in any way undermining
the country’s security interests. The potential savings from such
relatively modest moves: $1 trillion over 10 years. Although that
analysis would need to be revised to reflect the impact of the Russian
invasion of Ukraine, most of its recommendations would still hold.

Far greater savings would be possible, however, if the staggeringly
costly, remarkably counterproductive militarized approach to fighting
global terrorism (set so deeply and disastrously in place since
September 11, 2001) was reconceived.  This country’s calamitous
post-9/11 wars, largely justified as counterterror operations, have
already cost us more than $8 trillion and counting, according to a
detailed analysis [[link removed]]
by the Costs of War Project.  Redefining such counterterror efforts
to emphasize diplomacy and economic assistance to embattled countries,
as well as the encouragement of good governance and anticorruption
efforts to counteract the conditions that allow terror groups to
spread in the first place, could lead to a major reduction in the
American global military footprint. It could also result in a
corresponding reduction in the size of the Army and the Marines.

Similarly, a deterrence-only nuclear strategy like the one outlined
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by the organization Global Zero would preempt the need for the
Pentagon’s three-decades-long plan to build a new generation of
nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines at a cost of up to $2
trillion [[link removed]].
At a minimum, hundreds of billions
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of dollars would be saved in the process.

And then there’s Washington’s increasing focus on a possible
future war with China over Taiwan. Contrary to the Pentagon’s
rhetoric, the main challenges from China are political and economic,
not military.  The status of Taiwan should be resolved
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diplomatically rather than via threats of war or, of course, war
itself. A major U.S. buildup in the Pacific would be both dangerous
and wasteful, draining resources from other urgent priorities and
undermining the ability of the U.S. and China to cooperate
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in addressing the existential threat of climate change.

In a report
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for the Project on Government Oversight, Dan Grazier has underscored
just who wins and who loses from such a hawkish approach to U.S.-China
relations. He summarizes the situation this way:

“As U.S. and Chinese leaders attempt to jockey for position in the
western Pacific region for influence and military advantage, chances
of an accidental escalation increase. Both countries also risk
destabilizing their economies with the reckless spending necessary to
fund this new arms race, although the timing of just such a race is
perfect for the defense industry. The U.S. is increasing military
spending just at the moment the end of the War on Terror threatened
drastic cuts.”

When it comes to Russia, as unconscionable as its invasion of Ukraine
has been, it’s also exposed
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weaknesses of its military, suggesting that it will be in no position
to threaten NATO in any easily imaginable future.  If, however, such
a threat were to grow in the decades to come, European powers should
take the lead in addressing it, given that they already cumulatively
spend three times
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what Russia does on their militaries and have economies that, again
cumulatively, leave Russia’s in the dust
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And such statistics don’t even reflect recent pledges
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major European powers to sharply increase their military budgets.

Forging a more sensible American defense strategy will, in the end,
require progress on two fronts. First, the myth that the quest for
total global military dominance best serves the interests of the
American people needs to be punctured. Second, the stranglehold of the
Pentagon and its corporate allies on the budget process needs to be
loosened in some significant fashion.

Changing the public’s view of what will make America and this planet
safer is certainly a long-term undertaking, but well worth the effort,
if building a better world for future generations is ever to be
possible.  On the economic front, jobs in the arms industry have been
declining
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for decades thanks to outsourcing, automation, and the production of
ever fewer units of basic weapons systems. Add to that an increasing
reliance on highly paid engineers rather than unionized production
workers.  Such a decline should create an opening for a different
kind of economic future in which our tax dollars don’t flow
endlessly down the military drain, but instead into environmentally
friendly infrastructure projects and the creation and installation of
effective alternative energy sources that will slow the heating of
this planet and fend off a complete climate catastrophe.  Among other
things, a new approach to energy production could create 40% more jobs
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per dollar spent than plowing ever more money into the
military-industrial complex.

Whether any of these changes will occur in this America is certainly
an open question. Still, consider the effort to implement them
essential to sustaining a livable planet for the generations to
come.  Overspending on the military will only dig humanity deeper
into a hole that will be ever more difficult to get out of in the
relatively short time available to us.

Copyright 2023 William D. Hartung

WILLIAM D. HARTUNG, a _TomDispatch _regular
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is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible
Statecraft and the author most recently of “Pathways to Pentagon
Spending Reductions: Removing the Obstacles
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* US Military Budget; Congress and the Defense Budget;
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