I appreciated Dave Stone's "U.S. Needs to Get It's Priorities Straight" and its aim to start a discussion of U.S. strategic priorities. I personally think this year's political candidates haven't focused enough on broad issues such as how to prioritize overall federal spending, and I hope more articles like his begin to appear in major publications as the election nears.
I do however have a couple of criticisms of Mr. Stone's argument. Firstly, there is a reason why both John McCain and Barack Obama have called for a larger and better funded military; since the attacks of 9/11, the U.S. military has been asked to respond to a new set of threats while still hedging against other, previously known potential enemies. With the undertaking of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the overall global war on terrorism, as of 2008, the U.S. military has found itself conducting two long-running counterinsurgency campaigns, while still trying to maintain a robust high-tech conventional capability and a deterrent nuclear capability, one that has recently been found to be suffering from a dangerous lack of attention in several high-profile incidents.
To give a specific example, I'll speak to what I know best, the U.S. Air Force. Today the Air Force flies significantly more sorties daily than pre-9/11, both in terms of strike aircraft supporting ground forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and airlift missions delivering troops, supplies and fuel worldwide. Despite this increase in overall workload, the USAF cut almost 40,000 personnel since 2002 until Defense Secretary Gates recently put an immediate stop to further cuts and actually called for an increase back to a force numbering just over 330,000. At the same time, the Air Force has fielded several squadrons of new Predator, Global Hawk and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles; aircraft that have been pivotal to our counterinsurgency missions but which previously were thought to have limited utility in conventional conflicts. And to cap it off, the USAF fleet of manned aircraft is older on average than at anytime during the services' almost 61-year history, highlighting the need for modernization and recapitalization programs. In plain terms, the Air Force has been asked to fly more missions, new missions, purchase new weapons systems and maintain aircraft that are literally falling apart, all while cutting personnel.
All four military services and the Coast Guard have faced similar dilemmas in that their nation has continually asked them to do more with less, and eventually a breaking point will be reached. Top Army generals suggested that the Army's ground forces were at such a breaking point in 2005 and 2006, and the Bush administration and the Congress have since smartly authorized an overall increase in forces for the Army and Marine Corps to meet the additional tasks the nation was asking of them. Secondly, I question the source of Mr. Stone's claim that two-thirds of U.S. tax dollars are spend on national defense. Although I'm not a professed expert on the subject, and I've seen different numbers depending on what is considered "national defense" and what revenues is taken into account, but I've personally never seen a figure above forty-five percent of overall tax dollars going to national defense. And to top it off, "national defense" generally also includes funds allocated to Department of Energy nuclear security and Coast Guard missions dealing with port security and anti-terrorism missions, so any spending figure must be viewed with these additional capabilities in mind. A specific source for Mr. Stone's claims would have strengthened his argument.
Lastly, saying that the U.S. could cut defense spending by fifty percent and still outspend any other nation is misleading although technically true. Although the United States spends vastly more on national defense than any other state in the world, the U.S. also has far greater national ambitions and ideas about what our military can and should do. There is no other nation that simultaneously strives to maintain: a large and capable land force able to conduct multifaceted warfare in two separate theaters, a blue water navy that maintains constant global operations, an unquestionably dominant air superiority and global airlift-capable Air Force, a nuclear deterrent that provides an umbrella of security for much of the western world, etc. etc. etc. In the minds of most Americans, this status quo of global dominance should be maintained as a high national priority.
The U.S. public long ago decided that we and our allies would never again be threatened with annihilation at the hands of a technically superior Nazi Germany or a nuclear-armed and openly hostile Soviet Russia, and our unquestionable military superiority today is a product of lessons learned in past conflicts with such equally capable foes. Despite the ideas that money saved could be spent on a variety of domestic priorities, U.S. power and capabilities would be greatly reduced if we cut defense spending so drastically. I agree that there are areas where savings could be realized and that some of these areas could yield significant efficiencies. The U.S. military should not be a self-licking stamp that serves only to perpetuate itself. However, until the American people have a serious conversation about what capabilities we are willing to give up to realize the cost savings of reducing defense spending, calls for significant cuts are more foolish than they initially may seem.
Adam Dunn 2dLt, USAF 2007 graduate, School of International Service
(The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government)
