Gautam wrote:
Doug, how precisely do you expect to pay for the war we're currently
fighting? We can't, oddly enough, do it without increasing the
defense budget.
Me:
I don't disagree that we need to increase spending. I do disagree
with a large increase in spending without a greater degree of
accountability by the DoD and the Defense industry. Oliphant writes
in the Globe:
"First, the military budget for next year breaks Bush's promise and
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's commitment to a
''transformation'' of the military into a leaner, faster, and more
mobile force for the future. In the campaign and for most of last
year, the administration made common cause with the military
reformers of the past two decades, including, most recently, Senator
John McCain.
This budget breaks the commitment. You search it in vain for
decisions to streamline force structures, continue closing outdated
bases, and avoid duplicative projects (marginally different versions
of the same fighter plane) and pork-barrel procurement (the infamous
V-22 Osprey assault aircraft that even Dick Cheney had been opposing
for years)."
Me:
Let me be clear on this. I am the only person in the _entire United States_
to say this. I'm very proud of it. :-) September 11th proved that I was
wrong. Everyone else in American politics has argued that September 11th
proves that what they always wanted to do was correct :-) Only I have taken
the position that September 11th demonstrates that I took the _wrong_
position on an important issue. I wanted to streamline the force, stand
down from a high state of readiness, and so on. I thought the Pentagon
generals who wanted to do otherwise were too cautious. I was full of shit.
Oliphant is apparently the same. How, exactly, do you streamline the force
structure when most of that force structure is currently off killing people
in Afghanistan and getting ready to do that in Iraq? It was vaguely,
theoretically possible, given a ludicrously adept management team, to do
defense reform on the cheap before Sept. 11th. That's what I wanted to do.
I was wrong. It isn't possible anymore because the force structure is busy.
We just had the largest callup of the reserves since the Second World War.
My boss, among many other people, was one of those called up. That a force
stretched pretty far. The commitment was based on old circumstances. Those
circumstances have changed. To pretend that recent events didn't happen
would be insane.
Gautam:
Wars cost money. It's one of the less important reasons that you
try to avoid fighting them.
Me:
IMO the administration needs to define just what kind of war we are
fighting and how we win. I'm not happy with the idea that we will
be fighting some indeterminate entity indefinitely. If we really
want to end terrorism, we need to wipe out the disease rather than
swatting at the symptoms.
Gautam again:
That's a very nice thing to say. It's a little harder to actually do, you
know. The hijackers were all educated upper-middle class products of Arab
societies. So I guess that the best way to cure the disease would be to
eliminate economic prosperity in the Arab world. No? I don't feel like
doing that either, actually. So saying "wipe out the disease" is really
awfully simplistic. The disease is - they hate us because we are what they
are not. The West Wing said it best today - they'll like us when we win.
Show strength, show power, show resolve, show determination, and they will
like us when we win. _That's_ how you cure the disease.
Gautam:
Yes, there are lots of people who think the Administration is
spending too much on the military. Congratulations, you've proven
that to me. There are lots of people who think that we shouldn't
have toppled the Taliban too. So what? There are lots of people who
believe every damn fool thing you can imagine. Many of them are
journalists. In this particular case, given how overwhelmingly
leftist the American media is, there is no defense spending increase
that wouldn't draw criticism from lots of the media.
Me:
The U.S. media may appear liberal to the ultra conservative, but
it's my opinion that they are pretty middle of the road for the most
part. If you read any of those editorials you know that most of
them agree that some increase in defense spending is necessary, but
that they are opposed to writing a blank check to the DoD. From an
external viewpoint the U.S. media probably appears conservative.
Gautam again:
Would you care to guess what proportion of the US media votes Democratic?
The odds that the Washington Post, New York Times, and so on will endorse
the Democratic candidate in any given election? Fairly low, let me assure
you. These are not neutral observers. Most of my _Democratic_ friends
agree with me on that. To assert otherwise is to pretty much define
yourself as a member of the very far left.
Gautam:
The Administration is proposing a $379B defense budget. The total
budget is, I believe, approximately $2.2 Trillion. The total GDP is
in the range of $10 Trillion. Which means we are spending less than
4% of the GDP on defense. In the 1980s we routinely spent more than
6%. Given that 3000 Americans just got killed by agents of a
hostile country - a striking demonstration of the violent
potential of the modern world - spending more doesn't seem like a
bad idea. Now, I don't necessarily agree with all of their
priorities either. But given the difficulties the military has had
in recruiting, an across-the-board pay raise doesn't seem like a
bad idea.
Me:
From the Center for Defense Information (are they leftists?):
http://www.cdi.org
"The proposed $48 billion increase in the next defense budget
represents a 12 percent real increase over this year, and comes to a
dramatic 14 percent above the Cold War average -- to fund a force
structure that is one-third smaller than it was a decade ago. U.S.
military spending is creeping toward $400 billion -- and now exceeds
the combined military spending of the 15 countries with the next
biggest defense budgets."
Gautam again:
Bravo. I'm all in favor of it. The militaries of the next 15 countries are
quite ineffective. Lord Roberts _the head of NATO_ declared only a few days
ago that the European countries (most of those in that 15) have essentially
made their forces useless. They can't project power. They can't fight a
modern war. They really can't do _anything_ without the United States. We,
on the other hand, need to be able to fight 7000 miles away on a moment's
notice. Which we just did. It's not cheap. The force structure is smaller
because it is more capital intensive. That's a good thing. I'd rather
spend money than blood. We have global responsibilities. No one else does.
Nothing of what you posted above makes any sort of a counterargument to
these points. It just says we spend more than other people. No kidding.
We spend a _lot_ more than other people. We _get_ a lot more for that, and
we have to _do_ a lot more with that.
Gautam:
Given the rapid pace of change in military technology, spending a
lot on R&D seems like a good idea. Given the incredible tempo of
military operations in the last 15 years - one likely to increase -
spending a substantial amount on procurement seems like a good idea.
And gee, you know, when we ask American soldiers to fly off on a
moment's notice to every God-forsaken corner of the planet to get
shot at over and over and over again, it doesn't exactly seem unfair
to pay them a bit more.
Me:
We agree that there are reasonable expenditures.
Gautam:
Given the threat of rising Chinese power (among other things)
spending a lot on systems designed to fight conventional wars seems
like a good idea.
Me:
If we are building up the military in order to combat China, then
let us state that that is the reason. Procuring weapons to fight a
hypothetical war with China using the war on terrorism as a reason
to procure them is not acceptable.
Gautam again:
I see. You think that the best way for us to construct defense policy is
for the Bush Administration to go to Congress and say "We want to fight the
Chinese, so this is what we need."? I don't think that's a useful exercise
in international diplomacy. The point of the spending is to do a remarkable
and difficult task - to maintain (continually, wihtout a break, into the
forseeable future) overwhelming American predominance in military power
_while simultaneously_ transforming the American military to fight far
future threats. This isn't easy, and it's not cheap. China is the most
plausible Global Peer Competitor for the United States, so we program our
defense budget to think about China. It's not under the guise of terrorism.
Everyone in the Congress knows what's going on. It's not just entirely
acceptable, it's the only way the government can work.
Gautam:
Given that we're in the middle of a recession, doing it with
deficit spending seems rather like a good idea.
Me:
Note that I do not and have not reflexively condemned all military
expenditures. Please don't put words in my mouth. None of the
articles condemned all military spending, reflexively or otherwise.
They called for fiscal responsibility when dealing with military
expenditures.
Gautam again:
But they strikingly failed to define it. Do you oppose Crusader? Why? The
F-22? Why? The JSF? Why? The Comanche? Why? The Seawolf? Why?
Centurion? Why? The Ronald Reagan? Why? You agree with increased R&D
spending and a pay increase. What specific programs do you oppose? Just
saying "It's too much" is meaningless. What is it that they are spending
too much on? I can argue programs with you. But that's not what you're
choosing to do. You're just saying - over and over again - that they're
spending too much. On what, exactly, are they spending too much?
Gautam:
you might want to point out what, exactly, you disagree with.
Then maybe I can debate with you. But saying that you think a
hysterical screed like Krugman's is exactly right makes me think
that it's not the defense increase you oppose - it's the
Administration in anything that it does.
Me:
Sigh. I posted articles that said any number of things I agreed
with, Gautam. Your first reply was a personal attack on the author
of the article and an essay that attacking the definitiveness of his
analogy but did little to address his points.
Your second post, attributes opinions to me that neither I nor the
articles I posted expressed and used hyperbole for emphasis. I
would have thought that if Klugman is so wrong that you could have
taken one or more of his points and destroyed it.
Consider that a challenge. 8^)
--
Doug
Gautam:
His _point_, to the extent that he had one, was that the Bush Administration
was cheating the American public. His analogy to Enron was foolish. Unless
you think that the Administration was engaging in criminal conduct designed
to steal from the American public, why did you say you agreed with Krugman's
column? I _did_ destroy his argument. Or more accurately, Andrew Sullivan
did. His analogy to Enron mainly revealed what those of us who have been
following Krugman for a while already knew - that switching to the New York
Times made him into a hack. Other than that he didn't _make_ an argument.
So consider it a challenge on my part. If you think that the defense
increase is too large, explain to me how it is possible to fight a globe
spanning war while recreating the American defense establishment to take
advantage of new technologies on the fly without spending lots and lots of
money. Tell me what programs you would cut and why. What sort of defense
tradeoff would you be willing to make? If you think fighting a war the way
we're doing it is a bad idea, then tell me what you think we should be
doing. You haven't done any of these things, so I have to admit that I
don't even see what argument you're making other than "The Bush
Administration is bad." Of course I was contemptuous of Krugman. He didn't
say anything beyond everyone who disagrees with me is evil and out to cheat
the public. He actually argued that the Administration was using 9/11 to
reward its supporters. That's contemptible. Do you believe those things?
If so, why? And if not, construct for us a comparable foreign policy and we
can talk about how it's better or worse than the one currently being carried
out by the US.
Gautam
