Lucia

de Vernai

Read Lucia's bio and previous columns

March 11, 2009

$750 Billion for the Military? Now? Why?

Even though network television stations, blogs, magazine articles and your company newsletter all provide you with priceless advice about how to save money, reality still hasn’t kicked in. Every time someone suggests that you cut out cable or save by using the Internet in the library, you wonder what world they live in.

A similar case is the proposed military budget President Obama has proposed – an 8 percent hike in military outlays for next year. With operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, that will cost us $700 billion. With Veteran Affairs and Homeland Security, the figure climbs to $750 billion. That’s more that in the past six decades. Why?

Republican Congressman John Shadegg made his Arizona constituents question his judgment when he stated that, “Our nation is facing the threat of Radical Islam, the gravest threat to our national security in history.” Considering that Washington shells out 70 times more money on defense than Iran, Syria and North Korea combined, the threat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (and resulting estimated 60 million dead) trumps the rumblings of rogue states hands down.

The face of our adversaries has changed – no longer a vast, solid target hiding behind the Iron Curtain, the threat of non-governmental actors like terrorist groups is real. Still, to continue spending like we did in the good old times is a mistake. Obama plans to expand the Army and Marine Corps. Lockheed and Halliburton contract renewal is a given. All great ideas if the objective of our armed forces was nation-building, logistical support and infrastructure construction. These are noble and challenging tasks but unlikely to eradicate small, portable pockets of terrorists that can destroy years of work and negotiation with the push of a button and with impunity.

If American taxpayers should be investing in military matters at this time, it should be in intelligence and improved foreign relations. Our conviction that bigger is better – and that using money we don’t have to get it – is the best and only way to assert our strength. Rather, it leads to the kind of self-righteousness that makes us an easy target. Subtle, patient, diplomatic and cunning may not be the American way – yet.

First, we have to be able to see through the façade other military powers are putting on. Iran’s testy manner has not extended to American allies, North Korea’s puffing and huffing is rather aimed at their well-prepared neighbor to the south and China’s per capita GDP was an eighth of ours, making military expansion slow even as the country advances.

Compromise has never been a cultural value for Americans. Giving up what we are attached to comes slowly and with a heavy sigh. A drastic overhaul is not the optimal solution in questionable times, but re-thinking our behavior is long overdue. As uncomfortable as it may be to ask, “Does my 13-year-old really need 5,000 text messages a month?” or “Wouldn’t this country’s international relations profit from a translator who can translate ‘Reset’ into Russian?” the sooner we challenge where our money goes, the sooner we’ll get what we really need. 

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.