Energion Roundtable Week 4 Responses – The Military
In their answers to this week’s Energion Roundtable question, Arthur Sido, Joel Watts and Bob Cornwall, all expressed the need to cut the military and so I thought I would respond deal with all three on this issue here. Since this was my main disagreement with Sido, I will focus on his comments and will deal with my disagreement with the others in other areas in a different post.
First off, let me say that my disagreement is not total. I, and I believe many that Sido would label “hysterical,” realize that, just like any other area of Government, there is a lot of waste in the Defense Department. There is often a huge difference between what the military needs to defend this country, and what Congress appropriates.
One of the interesting facts revealed in Rumsfeld’s book Known and Unknown was the difference between being Secretary of Defense in the 1970s and then later in the early years of this century in terms of the demands made by Congress. In 1977, during the Cold War and when the Defense budget consumed nearly twice as much in terms of GDP, the legislation authorizing the Department of Defense was 16 pages long. In 2001 it was 534 pages (p. 297). Therein alone is a large part of the problem.
Where I disagreed, was over the assessment of the threat, the nature of the threat, and the need for a standing army. I do a lot of reading of history and recently have been reading a lot on WWII. I just finished reading Eugene Sledge’s With the Old Breed, which is a great book, and which was one of the main sources for the HBO series, The Pacific. One of the things that becomes clear in his book and many others, is the link between the role of training and equipment and the chance of survival in combat.
Herein is a huge difference between the military and other branches of Government. Not only is it a prime responsibility of the federal government, but experience has shown that with all the talk of cutting waste, cuts in the military normally end up being born by troops who at the end of the day, still need to get the job done, as they operate equipment that is often older than their fathers, and now days, at times their grandfathers. As a result, peace dividends are often paid for with the lives of our troops.
(On a side note, while one of the videos Sido cited claims we do not need landing craft anymore, that we have not made an amphibious attack since WWII and are unlikely to make one again. Yet as it turns out, the son of a friend of mine was part of the first amphibious attack since WWII, in a craft that was so old that according to him, the threat of sinking was a constant problem, even before they got into combat.)
I also disagreed over the nature of the threat. In one of Sido’s links he points out that we do not face any real threats from Russia and China, and that we would defeat Iran or North Korea if war started with them. (I would quibble a bit his claim that we have not been attacked since Pearl Harbor, 911 comes to mind).
While perhaps true today, this is not so much a result of spending today, but of spending in the past. Much of the spending we do today is to maintain our status. In short it is not so much that we could win a war if attacked, but to be so powerful that no one will attack us. This is particular true given that North Korea is a nuclear power, and Iran, if not stopped, soon will be. So we are not just talking about avoiding war, but nuclear war. Sure we would win, but at what cost?
And while China is not a threat today, it is very clear that they are intending to be, as is Russia. Those concerned about China do not want a strong military so that we can fight China in the near future, (though Chinese military leaders have threatened to attack several times.) They want a strong military so as to preclude any such conflict 20 -40 years from now. Given the length of time to build ships and planes, etc, waiting until they are an actual threat is too late.
The bottom line is that we are the world’s dominant power, and the world it not a safe place. If we relinquish this role, who will take our place, and will that be better for us and the rest of the world in the long run?
Finally, as Sido writes, “Even more troubling is the enthusiastic embrace of unlimited military spending by people who claim the name of Christ.” Perhaps he would include me in this category, but I find it little more than a straw man. No one I know wants “unlimited military spending.” Granted I and others may err on the side of over-spending, but I would rather waste dollars than waste lives. I would rather be so strong that no one would dare attack us, than just weak enough that we end up in a war. I would rather our troops go into battle over-equipped than under-equipped and struggling to make do. In short, I do not believe the threat comes from us being too strong, but rather too weak.
