Do We Have Any Hope of Shrinking the National Security State?

     I must confess that, at times, the goal of shrinking the U.S. national security state from its  current behemoth size to something more modest and reasonable seems like a hopelessly, quixotic pipe dream.  After all, the corporate and military interests dedicated to maintaining the status quo are enormously powerful, and they are ruthless in their commitment to self preservation.  Plus, when the nation remains, in one way or another,  perpetually at  war; it's seems impossible to obtain the broad-based  political support necessary to make dramatic cuts in the defense budget.

     Yet,  I remain convinced that substantial military spending decreases will occur in the near future for the simple reason that current expenditure levels are not sustainable.   The national deficit is just too large. Also, much of the U.S. perceived need to project military power around the globe is based on the economy's oil dependence.  Since it's now painfully apparent that we can't remain addicted to fossil fuels,  the U.S. will steadily  increase investing in alternative energy sources.   Then, as oil dependency decreases, the need for a world-wide military presence to maintain control of supply lines will diminish.

      The cycle away from our current high tide of militarism has already begun. It will play itself out over time.  However,  we can't become complacent.  Much hard work remains to rally the support to bring about desperately needed changes, sooner rather than later.

     Saddle up, Amigos.

Fifty Years After Ike's Farewell Address, The Military Industrial Complex Permeates Our Lives. We Must Reign It In.

         

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. 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, so that security and liberty may prosper together." - Dwight D. Eisenhower 1/17/60             
                                                                                                            

January 18, 2011

     Yesterday was not only Martin Luther King Day, it was also the 50th anniversary of Eisenhower's farewell address in which he warned against the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex.  Plaudits for Ike seemed to be breaking out everywhere I turned.

     NPR's Morning Edition and On Point  ran  stories on him ( You can access the first here  and the second here. The complete text of the speech is available here.)

     Quaker activist and commentator Chuck Fager sent around favorable comments about Eisenhower avoiding nuclear war during the height of Cold War tension.

     Andrew Bacevich's latest article in The Atlantic, The Tyrany of Defense Inc., (click here) extolled Ike's foresight and lambasted our costly national security state.

     And in my American Studies class, I was segueing into my annual pitch regarding Ike's prescient warning.

     Fifty years following the speech, with staggering, wasteful military expenditures dwarfing those of the world's other nations  (click here for international comparisons ), we have neither peace nor prosperity. Nor do we seem to have the critical mass of "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" that Eisenhower hoped would "compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."   


However, we really have no choice but to press the case against maintaining these ridiculous levels of military spending. By March 4, Congress needs to finalize the US budget for 2011. The current military authorization bill calls for $725,000,000,000 in new spending.  (Note: this does not include the continuing costs, such as veterans' medical care,  associated with prior wars.)  Please call or write your representative and senator  and ask for reductions in defense expenditures such as those described in the recent spate of proposals summarized by Laicie Olson of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (available here.)  Billions need to be cut from military spending and reinvested into productive new technologies and vitally needed social programs.


                                                * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  

For further insights from Eisenhower, consider the quotation below from a 1953 speech.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. […] Is there no other way the world may live?" 

      –Dwight David Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Apr. 16, 1953/ (From: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/11/hbc-90001660)

Gen. Eisenhower speaks with soldiers of the 101st Airborne on the eve of D-Day.  If anyone knew the costs of war, it was Ike.

We Need More Than a "Clean-Energy" Moonshots:

In his thoughtful and provocative, October 28, 2010 Rolling Stone article, The Case for Obama,  Tim Dickinson argues that Obama is our first "green" president.  While acknowledging his failure to obtain a comprehensive climate bill,  Dickinson praises Obama for launching the equivalent of a "clean-energy moonshot" via targeting $94 billion of stimulus money for clean energy development,  enough to "double the nation's renewable-energy generating capacity by 2012 - bringing enough clean energy online to power New York around the clock...." while doubling "... the nation's manufacturing capacity for wind turbines and solar panels, bringing down the cost of  clean energy so it can compete with fossil fuels - even if Congress doesn't pass a carbon cap."  Dickinson goes on to laud the president for various steps to aggressively reduce pollution, including getting old cars off the roads through the Cash for Clunkers program, increasing CO2 restrictions  on new vehicles, and (most likely) having the EPA "...set limits on carbon emissions for large industrial polluters..."


This is all well and good, but far more is needed.  The "moonshot" analogy is fine for raising eyebrows, but the stakes far higher when  dealing with climate change than they ever were for the space race.  This is not just a matter of bolstering U.S. prestige, gaining further military advantage and generating future economic spin-offs; this is about the future of an energy devouring planet.





The Obama administration's current efforts have to be squared against the arguments laid out by James Fallows in this December 2010  The Atlantic article,  Dirty Coal, Clean Future,  in which Fallows presents indisputable evidence for the world's (and especially China's and the United States')  reliance on coal for decades yet to come. So, what's a nation to do, especially given the  projected poor results  for power plant scrubbing techniques that will never really yield clean coal?  The most promising  possibility presented by Fallows,  one where  the Chinese are once again far ahead of Americans,  is underground gasification of coal.  Of course there will be problems with perfecting this technology, but the prospect  of tapping the nation's massive coal reserves, while leaving the worst of the pollutants below the surface is compelling and deserving of far more federal investment. 


 


And where can the funds be found? It is ridiculous to pursue the reductions in social programs that the incoming  congressional Republicans are touting.  Too many people - young, old and in-between - are desperately hurting due to the weak economy.  The most logical source of funding is our bloated military budget. Once again, I suggest that you visit the National Priorities Project website to explore the facts regarding the federal budget. In particular view their  Cost of War  calculator and their Tradeoffs tool  in order to get a stronger notion of the possibilities.


(Note: Clicking on the items appearing in blue will link you to the mentioned sites.)

Andrew Bacevich Wields the Painful Truth:

In his compelling book, The Limits of Power, Andrew Bacevich cuts to the chase, telling the painful truths that we in the United States do not want to hear. 

Bacevich argues that:
The chief desire of the American people , whether they admit it or not, is that nothing should disrupt their access to ... goods, ... oil, and ... credit.  The chief aim of the U.S. government is to satisfy that desire, which it does in part though the distribution of largesse at home and in part through the pursuit of imperial ambitions abroad (largely the business of the executive branch.)

From time to time, various public figures - even presidents- make the point that dependence may not be a good thing.  Yet meaningful action to reduce this condition is notable by its absence.  It's not difficult to see why.  The centers of authority within Washington - above all, the White House and the upper echelons of  the national security state - actually benefit from this dependency. It provides the source of  status, power, and prerogatives.  Imagine the impact just on the Pentagon  were this country actually to achieve anything approaching energy independence.  U.S. Central Command would go out of business.  Dozens of bases in and around the Middle East would close. The navy's Fifth Fleet would stand down.  Weapons contracts worth tens of billions would risk being canceled.So rather than addressing the problem of dependence, members of our political class seem hell-bent on exacerbating it....

As a nation, we must begin living within our means. We must strive vigorously for energy independence.  And we must stop our misguided military adventures launched to sustain an imperial dominion vastly beyond our reach.

You can see a 2008 interview of Bacevich, conducted by Bill Moyers, at:   http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08152008/watch.html

Having trouble staying on top of the different military reduction proposals?

There are so many different reports emerging on how the military budget might be reduced that it is difficult to sort them out.  Fortunately for us, Chris Hellman, of the National Priorities Project reviews  all of them for us.  Chris helped to write the Sustainable Defense Task Force report, which in my mind has the best  set of recommendations of all of the reports that are out there. You can check out Chris' Blogs at: http://nationalpriorities.org/en/blog/2010/11/16/all-hands-debt-entering-critical-debate-over-federal-deficit-reduction/



As I have written many times now,  a certain portion of whatever money is saved must be used to pay down the deficit, but a certain amount has to be reinvested in order to create new jobs (especially in sustainable technologies)  and support vital  social programs (such as urban education.)  To get a handle on   
some of the education options available, you should surf on over to Edutopia,  the website of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, dedicated to what works in education.

Redirect Military Savings into Harvesting Energy From the Sun:

The Deficit Commission appointed by President Obama is recommending far more modest cuts in defense spending than the Sustainable Defense Task Force convened by Barney Frank, Ron Paul and others; 372 billion dollars in  5 years, rather than 960 billion in ten. Far more could be trimmed from either set of recommendations, still leaving the U.S. with massive military superiority over the other nations in the world. However, it will be a struggle simply to get the Deficit Commission's recommendations adopted by Congress.

NPR ran a half-hour Talk of the Nation segment recently on the Deficit Commission's recommendations.  The two discussants they brought in were both conservatives, but the conversation is worth listening to in order to hear what even conservatives are recommending given a military budget that has grown absurdly since 9/11/2001, so that nearly 1/2 of all federal discretionary spending is now directed to the military.  You can listen to or read the NPR segment at:
http://www.npr.org/2010/11/15/131334547/deficit-commission-calls-for-defense-budget-cuts?sc=emaf

Of course,  a substantial amount of whatever is taken out of the defense budget is going to have to go into deficit reduction, but a certain portion should be redirected into more projects like the solar thermal energy plant being built in the Mojave Desert by BrightSource Energy.  You can find out more about this promising effort, and link to a story about the accompanying environmental controversies, by going to http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2334  and reading Todd Woody's articles in Environment 360 

BrightSource

BrightSource Energy, which built this demonstration solar complex in Israel, is building a 400-megawatt solar power plant in Southern California.

The Election is Over : Now Let's Have a Bipartisan Effort to Invest in Smarter Cities

 So, the Republicans control the House, but the Democrats still have the White House and the Senate. For anything beneficial to happen there are going to have to be some bipartisan agreements.  Fortunately, everyone recognizes that there have to be reductions in the federal budget and everyone recognizes that we need to create new jobs.  There are only so many reasonable options available. The new Congress should start budget reduction efforts by taking a hard look at military spending. Furthermore, some savings need to be invested in smarter, greener approaches to modern living.

IBM has launched a website called The Smarter City which  provides a forum for sharing smart practices being used in urban centers around the world to improve: healthcare, energy use, transportation, education, economic development and public safety.  It's time to cut the bloat in the massive military budget. Rather than dedicating hundreds of billions to more efficient ways of killing, let's start investing in more effective ways of living.

Check out The Smarter City at: http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/thesmartercity/index.shtml?cm_mmc=agus_brsmartcity-20090929-usbrb111-_-s-_-genhpmerch-_-sp

The Link will lead you to this site:

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