Cutting the Military

The US cannot afford the military it now has. If the US military is exempt from any cuts, then the rest of the budget must be cut so substantially that it would be catastrophic. Back in the time when the US actually had an enemy, the man who was president, Dwight Eisenhower, actually knew more about the military than any president we ever had. What did he do? David Stockman in his new book The Great Deformation tells us:

The nearly one-third reduction in real defense spending during the Eisenhower period was thus achieved by sharp changes in priorities and force structure. These included shrinking the army by nearly 40 percent, large cuts in naval forces, and an overall reduction in military personnel from about 3.5 million in early 1953 to 2.5 million by December 1960.

As a conservative I am supposed to worship at the altar of Ronald Reagan. But Stockman actually worked for him. Here is his description of military spending under Reagan:

As indicated, constant-dollar spending in Reagan’s fiscal 1989 budget was 30 percent, more than Eisenhower’s last budget, but even the subsequent official end of the Cold War resulted in only a modest rollback. Clinton’s final budget was a tad smaller in inflation-adjusted dollars than Eisenhower’s, even though by the year 2000 the United States had no industrial state enemy left on the planet.

Well, at last we can be happy that Obama is president and the insanity will stop. No, not so much. Stockman explains:

In fact, inflation-adjusted defense spending in fiscal 2011 of $670 billion was a new record, eclipsing even George W. Bush’s final war budget. It was thus abundantly evident that even an out-and-out “peace” president is no match for the modern warfare state and the crony capitalist lobbies which safeguard its budgetary requisites. Indeed, Barack Obama pushed the frontiers of the warfare state further than ever before. Beating his mandate for plowshares into an even mightier sword, the peace president pushed defense spending to a level 80 percent greater in real terms than General Eisenhower.

All these quotes are from pages 215 to 218 of The Great Deformation.

I suppose that neither liberals nor conservatives should read The Great Deformation, at least not unless they are taking their blood pressure meds.

While I am only guardedly pessimistic, and Stockman is totally pessimistic, the crisis that is coming will not be a happy time. I hope I am wrong.

Here is a part of the most ignored speech ever made.