Saving the Defense Budget: Are Brooks, Feulner, and Kristol Wrong?

The fear mongers are back in full force in the Wall Street Journal today.  Arthur Brooks, Ed Feulner, and Bill Kristol attempted a preemptive strike against anyone who would touch the sacred defense budget or dare to suggest that it might be included in efforts to reduce the federal deficit. And as usual, they are trotting out old half-facts and fear words to try to make their case.  As Samuel Beckett said in ENDGAME, “Ah, the old questions, the old answers, there’s nothing like them!” 

First, the old facts.  In dealing with the deficit, it is irrelevant to argue, as they do, that the defense share of GDP is lower today than the Cold War average.  That only tells us the economic burden of defense spending, but it tells us nothing about the budgetary burden of that spending.  And that has clearly risen.  Although they would like to argue that defense spending has nothing to do with our deficits, it clearly does, just as all federal spending that exceeds revenues does. 

In fact, in contrast to their argument, defense spending has risen faster than non-defense discretionary spending, the comparable, congressionally-controllable part of domestic spending since 2001.  But, of course, in contrast to their funny numbers, you have to add all of defense spending, including the costs of the wars.  It’s all defense, it’s all spending, it all contributes to the deficit, and, as insiders will tell you, the war spending at DOD has been highly interchangeable with the rest of the DOD budget. 

From 2001 to 2010, the budget for national defense grew nearly 70% in constant dollars and its share of discretionary spending rose from 47.6% of the total to 55.6%.  That makes defense part of the deficit problem.  In the broader context, it is one of the spending “Big Four” – 19.2% of total spending, along with non-defense discretionary (18.7%), means-tested entitlements (15.7%), and social security (19.2%).  And the tax cuts of 2001 have played a big role, as well.

Brooks-Feulner-Kristol fail to point out that it is economically impossible to get the deficit and debt under control unless all spending (and revenues) are on the table.  Picking on the other parts of the problem, alone would mean gutting all domestic spending, eliminating much of Medicare and Social Security, or raising taxes into the 80% brackets.  And, of course, what they (and, sadly, Secretary Gates) want to do – keep defense off the table – is political death to deficit reduction and debt control – everything will be on the table.

Then for their theory of the global environment.  It’s a dangerous world out there, they say, replete with pirates, terrorists, and assertive Chinese.  This is the favorite theory run out by the Perry-Hadley panel in their critique of DOD’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).  It is little more than a façade to justify growing defense budgets as far as the eye can see, affordable or not.  First, we are leaving Iraq as we speak and will be drawing down in Afghanistan starting next year (pace General Petraeus who thinks we will be there for ten years; we will not; the Afghans won’t have us.)  Frees up a considerable amount of military personnel.  Second, anyone who thinks terrorists and pirates justify a $700 billion defense budget and a 2 million person force (actives and reserves) has clearly drunk way too much kool-aid.  These missions are important, but they do not drive anywhere near that number of forces.  Third, one is shocked to learn that China, like other sovereign nations, intends to protect its coast and its territory.  The US has ample sea and air power to cope for decades with a rising China, whose economic pursuits pose a much more significant problem for the US than their military pursuits.

Far from a military decline, the US forces are more than up to the challenges they might face, once we have finished with the ill-fated adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Army and Marines are larger than anyone but China (and they won’t be doing a ground war in China, thanks.) The Navy is superior to anyone.  Air power is capable of global strike operations; nobody else is. And we have been spending mightily (defense procurement budgets are up 107% between FY 2001 and FY 2010) to keep the world’s most sophisticated military technology up to date.  There is no “decline” or “hollowing” here, despite their rhetoric.

The true gauge of our military power is whether we have aligned our forces with the missions that have priority.  While DOD has yet to do that (the QDR sadly sets the whole question of priorities and risk assessment to the side), it is what must be done.  And what we do must be affordable within our resources, as with any nation.  We have more than enough to do what we need and plenty of room for defense budgets to participate in the critical effort to bring our nation’s finances under control, which even Adm. Mullen has called the greatest threat to our national security.