Why We Should Reduce the Defense Budget

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/bob-burnett/49164/why-we-should-reduce-the-defense-budget

Why We Should Reduce the Defense Budget
by Bob Burnett | April 20, 2013 - 8:50am

~snip~

For the past 70 years, the U.S. has been the world's police force, whether in Germany, Korea, Vietnam, or most recently, Afghanistan, and the defense budget has grown accordingly. President Obama's proposed 2014 defense budget is $527 billion. That's a slight increase over 2013, holding the baseline defense budget steady after a decade of humongous growth. (The $527 billion budget does not include costs of the Afghanistan war or DOE nuclear weapons work.)

Since America has left Iraq and plans to leave Afghanistan in 2014, it seems logical that the U.S. could reduce the size of its military forces. This is what happened after the end of the War in Vietnam and the end of the Cold War. But when it comes to the defense budget, deliberations are seldom rational.

There are several reasons for the contentious nature of defense budget deliberations. One is that U.S. defense allocations are so enormous their size warps perspective. Writing in The New Yorker, journalist Jill Lepore observed, "Between 1998 and 2011, military spending doubled, reaching more than seven hundred billion dollars a year--more, in adjusted dollars, than at any time since the Allies were fighting the Axis." The Council on Foreign Relations reported that in 2011 the United States had 4 percent of the world's population, accounted for 22 percent of the gross domestic product, yet was responsible for 42 percent of military spending. Lepore observed that what drives our defense budget is "the idea that the manifest destiny of the United States is to patrol the world... six decades after V-J Day nearly three hundred thousand American troops are stationed overseas, including fifty-five thousand in Germany, thirty-five thousand in Japan, and ten thousand in Italy." Former Republican Congressman Ron Paul claimed the U.S. military operates out of 900 bases deployed in 130 nations.

Another reason why it is difficult to trim the defense budget is because discussions are heavily politicized. Ever since 1952, when Republicans won the presidency by accusing Democrats of being soft on Communism and having "lost China," Republicans have dogmatically advocated for gigantic defense budgets and attacked the manhood of all those who oppose this notion.