Defense Chief Urges Big Cuts In Military Spending 449
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the Pentagon is wasting money it will no longer get, and focused on targets as diverse as the large number of generals and admirals, the layers of bureaucracy in the Pentagon, and the cost of military health care. 'The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, opened a gusher of defense spending that nearly doubled the base budget over the last decade,' Gates says. 'Military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny. The gusher has been turned off, and will stay off for a good period of time.' Gates, a Republican who was carried over as Defense Secretary from the Bush administration, has already canceled or trimmed 30 weapons programs with long-term savings predicted at $330 billion, but is now seeking to convert as much as 3% of spending from 'tail' to 'tooth' — military slang for converting spending from support services to combat forces. While this may not seem like a significant savings in the Pentagon's base budget, cuts of any size are certain to run hard against entrenched constituencies. Gates's critique of top-heavy headquarters overseas was underscored by the location of the speech — the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. President Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, warned the nation of the menacing influence of an emerging 'military-industrial complex' in his farewell address as president in 1960. 'Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals,' said Eisenhower, 'so that security and liberty may prosper together.'"
In the same speech (Score:5, Informative)
Eisenhower said:
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html [h-net.org]
I wonder why people always ignore that part.
Re:In the same speech (Score:5, Informative)
Arthur Roberts
[Written while the Brookhaven National Laboratory was being planned]
Upon the lawns of Washington the physicists assemble,
From all the land are men at hand, their wisdom to exchange.
A great man stands to speak, and with applause the rafters tremble.
"My friends," says he, "you all can see that physics now must change.
Now in my lab we had our plans, but these we'll now expand,
Research right now is useless, we have come to understand.
We now propose constructing at an ancient Army base,
The best electronuclear machine in any place, -- Oh
It will cost a billion dollars, ten billion volts 'twill give,
It will take five thousand scholars seven years to make it live.
All the generals approve it, all the money's now in hand,
And to help advance our program, teaching students now we've banned.
We have chartered transportation, we'll provide a weekly dance,
Our motto's integration, there is nothing left to chance.
This machine is just a model for a bigger one, of course,
That's the future road for physics, as I hope you'll all endorse."
And as the halls with cheers resound and praises fill the air,
One single man remains aloof and silent in his chair.
And when the room is quiet and the crowd has ceased to cheer,
He rises up and thunders forth an answer loud and clear.
"It seems that I'm a failure, just a piddling dilettante,
Within six months a mere ten thousand bucks is all I've spent.
With love and string and sealing wax was physics kept alive,
Let not the wealth of Midas hide the goal for which we strive. --Oh
"Take away your billion dollars, take away your tainted gold,
You can keep your damn ten billion volts, my soul will not be sold.
Take away your army generals; their kiss is death, I'm sure.
Everything I build is mine, and every volt I make is pure.
Take away your integration; let us learn and let us teach,
Oh, beware this epidemic Berkelitis, I beseech.
Oh, dammit! Engineering isn't physics, is that plain?
Take, oh take, your billion dollars, let's be physicists again."
1956:
Within the halls of NSF the panelists assemble.
From all the land the experts band their wisdom to exchange.
A great man stands to speak and with applause the rafters tremble,
‘My friends, ’says he, b e all can see that budgets now must change.
By toil and sweat the Soviet have reached ten billion volts.
Shall we downtrodden physicists submit ? No, no,-revolt!
It never shall be said that we let others lead the way.
We'll band together all finest brains and save the day.
Give us back our billion dollars, better add ten billion more.
If your budget looks unbalanced, just remember this is war.
Never mind the Army’s shrieking, never mind the Navy’s pain.
Never mind the Air Force projects disappearing down the drain.
In coordinates barycentric, every BeV means lots of cash,
There will be no cheap solutions,-neither straight nor synchroclash.
If we outbuild the Russians, it will be because we spend.
Give, oh give those billion dollars, let them flow without an end.
[Folklore records that the brave and solitary scientist who so vigorously
defended the purity of science at the original meeting was killed by
a beam of hyperons when the Berkeley Bevatron was first switched on.]
In this light the context of Eisenhower may be clearer. Here is a larger quote:
Re:Sad but true (Score:5, Informative)
I am pretty sure Gates is just the mouthpiece for the administration on this. His job is to say and do what the Commander In Chief (aka President) says. Either way, considering roughly 1/6th of the federal budget is millitary spending, we ought to be seeing some better results for that than failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For 665 billion dollars a year, we ought to have hover cars, laser rifles, robot/android soldiers, forcefields and fusion power by now.
2010 Federal budget: 3.552 Trillion Dollars
Total Federal revenue to pay for budget: 2.381 Trillion Dollars
Amount we put on the "Federal Credit Card" (a.k.a. our Children's Grandchildren), just for 2010: 1.717 Trillion Dollars
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget [wikipedia.org]
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/fy10-newera.pdf [gpoaccess.gov]
READ The transcript, don't depend on the media (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1467 [defense.gov]
I found a lot of the media coverage to be selective, and the headline on this /. posting to be somewhat misleading
Re:I like Ike (Score:3, Informative)
Some jackass will always be willing to take money for such a cause.
Remember triple amputee Vietnam vet Max Cleland?
They have no shame.
Re:I like Ike (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Interesting (Score:2, Informative)
Re:About time (Score:1, Informative)
Apparently you are unaware of the drastic cuts in the military that took place during the Clinton administration. Politicians were practically wetting themselves with glee to try to figure out ways to spend the 'peace dividend' after the Soviet Union collapsed. Unfortunately, the world is a much more dangerous place than it was in 1992. What IS going to bankrupt the US Federal government is all the entitlement programs, NOT the military - one of the few constitutional items the Feds actually spend money on.
Hard to Kill (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Military-Industrial Complex (Score:5, Informative)
A sense of proportion? Here's some proportion for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures [wikipedia.org]
If we cut our war budget from six times the next-biggest country to three times the next-biggest country, our budget would balance and our economy would grow. And we would still be far and away the best-defended nation.
Re:Interesting (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Military-Industrial Complex (Score:2, Informative)
You're going off of the '09 budget? Those numbers don't properly reflect military spending.
This one is skewed in the other direction, but probably closer to reality:
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm [warresisters.org]
Also, "it's not military, it's entitlement" is pretty binary thinking. The real problem is that the money taken in annually by the government is somewhere between $1.5-2T dollars. There are many thing contributing to this, military spending, shifting the tax burden onto the bankrupt or nearly bankrupt lower and middle classes, buying garbage assets from massive, bankrupt banks so that they can turn around and buy up smaller banks, etc, etc.
The debt is at about 90% of GDP and growing at a pants-filling 10% per year, with no end in sight. Military spending, "entitlement programs", taxation policy, DHS bullshit, everything should be on the table...but won't.
Re:Military-Industrial Complex (Score:5, Informative)
How does that math work?
According to your chart, the US spends 607 billion on its entire military.
According to this chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget) the budget deficit is about 1.4 trillion.
So if you cut out US military spending entirely, you wouldn't have cut half of the deficit.
If you cut it to 3x what China spends (3 x 85 billion = 255 billion, or a 352 billion dollar cut) you will still have over 1 trillion of deficit.
The US spends a ton on its military. Whether it needs to or not is something that can be debated, as well as whether that money could be better spent elsewhere. But saying that military spending is even the primary reason the US government is bankrupt is just bullshit.
Re:Military-Industrial Complex (Score:3, Informative)
What a wonderful, hippie, idea!
Unfortunately the numbers aren't anywhere like you think they are.
Total outlays this year: $3.5T (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png)
Total receipts: $2.1T (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/U.S._Federal_Receipts_-_FY_2007.png)
Deficit: $1.4T
Total military spending: $782B.
Unless you can somehow draft nega-soldiers that get paid in negative dollars, I find it rather unlikely that cutting the military budget by $390B or so will make up a $1.4T deficit.
It pays, sometimes, to get your facts from sources other than your hippie friends sitting around a campfire.
Re:Not Quite (Score:4, Informative)
There's simply no way one F-22 can replace 4 F-15's in the real world, no matter what Lockheed's marketing department says.
You raise an extremely good point, and Lanchester's Square Law [wikipedia.org] agrees with you. Basically, in order for a military force to beat an opponent twice its size, its weapons need to be four times as effective. In other words, numbers trump technology.
This only goes so far of course. It's based on a model in which both armies are engaged for the entire duration of the fight. If technology allows one army to strike the other from a distance with impunity, then the model does break.
Re:Gates and the defense contractors (Score:3, Informative)
It was supposed to be the "cheap" supplement to the F-22, much the same way the F-16 was the cheap supplement to the F-15. But now the F-35 costs as much, or possibly even more than the F-22 (CBO estimate: $122 million a copy and climbing), while being a substantially less capable airplane. And this has happened under Gates' watch.
I agree. I the plane is anywhere over 100 million per plane, it doesn't make much sense. At that price, based on what I've seen and read, the F22 is more than twice the plane. So from that perspective, it doesn't sound like the tax payers are getting a good return on the money.
And yet, he balks at buying more Super Hornets for the Navy instead, at what is a bargain price in the fighter world... $45 million apiece. There's no logic here.
On the other hand, I can defend this position. Each F22 and F35 consistently tests on par with at least a ten to one ratio. That means an F35, at 120 million each, versus 45 million per SH, is still a far, far, far better buy. For the same money we can get 2.7 SH or one F35. Given that one F35 can easily take out ten SH's, that places us 315 million ahead when contrasting F35 vs SH purchases.