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Panel of Defense Lobbyists and Revolving Door Doyens Calls for More Defense Spending [1]

['Dan Grazier']

Date: 2023-03 

The Commission conveniently inflated the threat posed by peer adversaries—this, of course, helps justify the most lucrative defense contracts. They warn of “the proliferation of advanced technology,” including ballistic and cruise missiles, precision-strike assets, and advanced air defenses, where, “in some cases, we are behind, or falling behind.” While the report does reference terrorism and the sort of conflicts against low-tech adversaries the United States is most likely to continue facing, the overwhelming majority of the report focuses on the kind of conventional conflict that, for all intents and purposes, is not even theoretically possible. Many scholars have written about the impossibility of two nuclear powers fighting a conventional war. Some military leaders arrived at the same conclusion after mock battles last year showed belligerents repeatedly resorting to nuclear weapons when the situation turned against them.



The Commission writes, “As the old adage goes, ‘Quantity has a quality all its own,’” saying the United States must grow its military force to meet all of its global commitments. There is an old Yankee saying, “You can’t get there from here,” which is perhaps more appropriate for the situation. Unfortunately for the commissioners, to say nothing of the taxpayers and troops, history shows that the more we spend on the military, the smaller and more fragile the force actually becomes. Free-flowing defense budgets encourage the Pentagon and defense contractors to indulge their worst instincts. They pursue overly complex weapons programs that end up costing a fortune beyond their originally promised price tags while simultaneously failing to come close to delivering on the lavish promised capabilities used to sell them. As the costs rise, Congress usually offsets the tightening budget by slashing production numbers. That’s how the B-2 bomber program dropped from a planned fleet of 132 to 21 and the F-22 fighter fleet shrank from the originally planned 648 to 187. Simply put, unless the Pentagon stops attempting to purchase the wunderweapon version for each program, the force will continue to shrink due to budget and political realities.

Were the report’s premise accurate, there should be mass firings in the upper ranks of the military and the civilian defense establishment. And, were it accurate, generations of military and civilian leaders have squandered unfathomable sums of money to no purpose, since our rivals have apparently been able to nibble away at our military edge while spending but a fraction to do so. Defense spending figures vary widely depending on the source and calculation method. But even by the most generous standards, U.S. military spending is more than twice that of Russia and China combined. In 2018, the United States spent $639 billion on defense while China spent $174.5 billion and Russia spent approximately $61 billion.

These figures lay bare the logical fallacy at the core of the Commission’s report. If Russia and China have steadily gained a military advantage over the United States while spending far less, then the problem facing our military is something other than spending levels. Yet the Commission’s key recommendation is to “increase the base defense budget at an average rate of three to five percent above inflation” for at least the next five years.

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[1] Url: https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2018/12/panel-of-defense-lobbyists-and-revolving-door-doyens-calls-for-more-defense-spending

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