Defense Budget Follies
We are officially through the looking glass in the current debate over the U.S. defense budget. Today, the Washington Post published a lunatic op-ed by Robert Kagan (Defending the Defense Budget) where he urges President Obama not to “cut” the defense budget. The reason for Kagan’s concern is a recent guidance issued by the Office of Management and Budget to the DoD to reduce their forthcoming budget request from roughly $584 billion to $527 billion.
The problem with Kagan’s approach is that the $527 figure/target is actually HIGHER than last year’s base defense budget. Obama isn’t proposing a cut. He’s proposing an increase. His figure is lower than the fantasy figure generated by the Joint Staff last fall in an exercise of political gamesmanship, but it is higher than most serious analysts expected.
Let’s also put things in perspective. In 2000, the defense budget was $281 billion. We have roughly DOUBLED our defense budget over the past eight years, even though in the big picture we face a less demanding security environment. Relations with China — the biggest potential threat we face — are quite cordial at the moment. Yes, it is true that we were attacked on 9/11/2001, but we were not attacked because our defense budget was too small. We did not lose air superiority. Our command of the seas was not challenged. No army routed our ground forces. 19 men armed with box-cutters commandeered civilian airliners. Justifying a doubling of the defense budget as a response to the events of that tragic morning is absurd.
Short version — Obama is currently planning to continue Bush’s defense spending at a slightly higher level than proposed under a series of Future Years Defense Programs (FYDPs) approved by the previous administration. Obama’s defense plan will have us spending roughly twice what we spent on defense in the 1990s. And anyone who claims that Obama is currently cutting defense is either unaware of these basic facts or is engaged in silly, partisan hackery.
[...] previous posts, we have addressed the misconception that President Obama is “cutting” the defense [...]
[...] have been a number of quality postsabout the recent flare-up over the defense spending “cut” myth, [...]
[...] Defense Budget Follies [...]
[...] previous posts, we have addressed the misconception that President Obama is “cutting” the defense [...]