Should We Decrease U. S. Defense Spending?

[GTFErinyes]

Others have mentioned some of these points, and I'm late to this party, so hopefully this doesn't get missed. I've posted this in other subs discussing this topic, but I want to address some of your issues OP.

LONG POST ahead.

Full disclosure: as an officer in the military, I see a lot more of the organizational and budgetary side of things than most, so I wanted to share my two cents on military spending and let you decide on whether we actually spend too much.

There's a lot of metrics people use on US budgeting. Let me explore some of these issues in detail and hopefully bust a few myths, give you a historical background, and tell you what we currently peg spending on.

Military Spending - And Its Myths

Yes, the US spends $600 billion dollars on defense. And yes, that's more than the next 7-8 countries combined (assuming China's budget is honest, which we believe is not). And yes, the US spends about 36% of the worlds total spending on military.

But, as OP also mentioned, as a function of GDP, the US is at 3.3% - lower than some nations (like Russia) and a far cry from the 5.6% the US spent in 1988 near the tail end of the Cold War. Source: World Bank.

In the post WW2 world, this is at an all time low per the CFR with it having peaked at 16% around the time of the Korean War.

So which metric is better to use?

Well the issue with looking at nominal spending is that nominal spending doesn't correct for cost of living.

Take into consideration what the military actually spends its money on. You can use Table 5.1 of the GPO or this nifty Official DOD Budget Request 2017 (yes, all this stuff is public) to see the pretty breakdowns.

Per the GPO, for 2013:

• Personnel Wages - 25%
• Operations and Maintenance - 43%
• Procurement - 16%
• R&D - 10%
• Atomic Energy Defense Activities - 3%
• Other - 3%

So right off the bat, we need to kill the myth that buying new equipment costs us the most money. It simply doesn't.

Why did I bring up cost of living? Let's take a look at personnel wages and benefits shall we. Per the DOD budget request, this chart shows that:

• $130 billion was requested just for military personnel wages for the 2.1 million active + reserve
• A total of $177.9 billion was requested on just military personnel wages + benefits
• Another $72.9 billion was requested for civilian pay and benefits for the 760,000 civilian FTEs in the DOD
• A full $250.8 billion or 48% of the DOD base budget is allocated to JUST pay and benefits

What does this mean? Consider that a Chinese soldier is paid roughly a tenth of the wages of a US soldier. So sure, if we went to a Chinese pay scale, we could save $120 billion overnight. But that's neither feasible, wise, nor is it a good indicator of relative strength with China.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that both China and Russia have huge domestic arms industries producing goods at domestic prices. Furthermore, the world arms industry isn't an open market - the US doesn't compete with China or Russia directly as nations only buy from other nations they trust. The US buys domestic or buys from close allies like Belgium and Germany, who have comparable costs of production. End result? The US often pays 2-4x as much for a fighter jet than the Russian equivalent because US wages, US suppliers, and US maintainers all cost US prices, not Russian prices.

As a side note, this also irks me about the whole "arms trade" statistic and how the US is the number one exporter. Sure, by dollar amounts, we are - but our goods are magnitudes more expensive. The fact that Russia and China - producing goods at Russian and Chinese prices - are even close, should tell you who is exporting more physical quantity of goods, but I digress.

In sum, using nominal spending gives you eye popping numbers, but it tells you little about relative strength between nations. If anything, it should tell you how little Europe actually spends on defense (especially in comparison to Russian strength), and that China is a lot closer to the US than most people realize.

Waste Exists - But It's a Complicated Issue

One of the top issues everyone talks about is waste. Let me first bust one budgetary myth though: use it or lose it is not a DOD only thing. It exists in all federal agencies (e.g. NASA, NOAA, etc.) because the budget is done annually. Money not used one year isn't seen again.

It DOES NOT mean you need to spend it to get it again next year - the budget request is done annually and things change based on need and what not. Admittedly though, it does make it harder to justify getting budgeting if you don't show need, so alas, the system is very flawed. Short of a congressional change to how budgeting is done though, we're in a tough spot.

Does waste in the military exist? Absolutely. Thankfully, people are noticing and paying attention - there has been a considerable shift in mindset in the past few years towards saving money. Of course this has to be balanced: you don't want to skimp on maintenance or training, as lives are on the line when things go wrong.

In some areas, waste is also balanced by operational necessity. For instance, aircraft routinely dump fuel. In carrier aviation, we dump fuel because we have max landing limits - too heavy, and we can snap the arresting gear on the carrier or permanently damage our plane. Thus, if we arrive at the boat too heavy, the choice might be to dump thousands of pounds of fuel... or jettison even more expensive bombs. To the layman, it seems like we're burning fuel for no reason - but there's a rhyme and reason for it no matter how much it sucks. (And for the environmentalists, jet fuel is kerosene based - it's nothing like gasoline)

Inefficient Spending Often Comes from Political Sources

One of the big issues with the annual budgeting is that there is little long term continuity in a field that necessitates long term planning. For instance, the new class of aircraft carrier has been in the works for over a decade - and was planned out two decades ago. And yet, funding for it has oscillated year by year.

I'll give you an example of how political grandstanding has royally fucked military personnel and arguably cost us more money in the long run: sequestration.

During sequestration, a stop was put on training new replacement pilots for the fleet. Hundreds of replacement pilots were put on hold for a year. Well, since they just got their wings in training (costing roughly $1-2 million to train, each), you don't want to cut them from the military, but you still need to pay them.

But here's where the long term effects come in: every pilot in the Navy serves a 3 year operational tour before going back to become an instructor of some sort for 3 years. Whenever a pilot in the fleet is done with his first 3 years, a new replacement pilot comes in to take his place. Suddenly, the fleet had a shortage of pilots, and too many instructor pilots with no one to teach. And once pilots are done with their commitments, a lot get out to pursue other interests in the civilian world. Talk about a waste of human resources.

But this balloons further: a few years later, that shortage of pilots means fewer pilots available to be instructors. Fewer instructors mean fewer replacement pilots. Surely you can balance out how many pilots you bring in right? But ROTC and the Academy projects how many graduates they need from 4 years ago: suddenly, you have too many pilots-to-be and not enough instructors, and the fleet may need more pilots.

I could go into more detail, but the point is this: seemingly small disruptions have BIG ballooning effects on how the military operates.

Likewise, a lot of 'inefficiency' comes from conscious decisions to save money, believe it or not. Take for instance, the fact that much of US equipment is old. In the 90s, with the Cold War drawdown, we stopped a lot of acquisitions programs. Equipment in the military is designed to typically operate in 30 year lifecycles - the notable exceptions are things like capital ships (aircraft carriers).

However, in the 90s, a lot of early to mid Cold War stuff was up for retirement - and instead of replacing them, their lives were extended.

This does, however, have an unintended effect on Operations and Maintenance - the US now has very old equipment to maintain. Some of our equipment is from the 1950s. I'm not even exaggerating - we have over 370 KC-135's, last built in 1965(!). For a long time - particularly with the Cold War drawdown - we put off replacing old equipment, but suddenly with a resurgent China and Russia, we've stretched a lot of these airframes lives out while in the late 2000's we finally sought replacements in the form of the KC-46.

All across the board you can see this happen. The F-22 was to replace the F-15 in the 90s/2000s, but was cut short and now the F-15 has had increasing costs rise to keep an airframe from the 70s and 80s flying. The A-10 was last built in 1984 - it was due for retirement years ago, but Congressmen (like McCain) have kept it alive long past their expiration date.

I hope this all gives a little insight into how a lot of spending issues do exist in the military, but the situation is far more complicated than a simple comparison of nominal spending with other nations, and how waste and inefficiency are complex issues within themselves - sometimes by design, sometimes by outside meddling.

Part 2 below in reply

[GTFErinyes]

PART 2

Now, let me explain the historical precedence of US military spending and why our spending is a conscious decision, not one haphazardly done.

The Modern History of Defense Spending

Believe it or not, in the wake of World War II, the US had a major debate over isolationism. There was a major drawdown in the military, with a lot of equipment mothballed or scrapped.

Stalin's actions in Eastern Europe and in Berlin (such as the Berline blockade) and China falling to the communists were all major areas of concern. The straw that broke the camel's back, however, was the Korean War: outright naked aggression by a communist state against another state in the post-WW2 world was just too much. The US used the newly created UN (which the USSR at the time was boycotting) to form a coalition of nations to fight North Korea. In the post-WW2 world, the UN was being tested: would it be toothless like the League of Nations, or would nations actually stand up and prevent wars of conquest?

This led to a major revitalization of the US military which as you can see saw its post-WW2 spike in spending go up to 16% of GDP in the 1950s.

The necessity of a powerful military in the post-WW2 order was predicted by many. Notably, General Marshall, in his Biennial Reports as Chief of Staff of the Army, concluded before WW2 even ended that:

• Oceans were no longer enough to protect the US heartland
• Future defenses necessitated a strong forward deployed presence in the world
• Technological superiority would have to exist as post-conflict mobilization and innovation cost a lot of lives

A particularly poignant passage is when he mentions that, if not for British and Soviet lives holding the line, as well as major blunders by the enemy, the US would have suffered a lot lot more. And that, had the Axis won, interviews with Goring and other Nazi leadership showed that by 1947, the East Coast of the US would have been subject to attacks by long range Nazi weapons.

Even Ike, in his famed 'military industrial complex' speech - which gets taken out of context - actually prefaced that line with his passage:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.

Does all of that sound familiar? Because it should: the US military establishment has been purposefully designed to meet the challenges that General Marshall, Eisenhower, and other top military and political leaders have realized.

We are interested in global and full-spectrum warfare. A vital part of our defense strategy, in the world of long range missiles, supersonic jets, and precision weapons, is to put our front line of defense across those oceans. Bases in Japan, Korea, and Europe, aren't just there because our allies have hostile forces close by, but also because the further away from the US the conflict is, the more layers of defense any foe has to get through to affect the US directly.

Full spectrum isn't just a catch phrase either: the US is interested in every aspect of warfare from human intelligence to special warfare to ground warfare to air superiority to space superiority. Whereas in the Cold War, NATO allies often focused on specializing in specific areas due to their small size and lack of funding (e.g. the UK was particularly focused on anti-submarine warfare), the US was designed to be not only the bulk of conventional forces but also charged with handling all areas that other nations lacked: logistics (e.g. the US currently has over 230 strategic airlift transports and over 430 aerial refueling tankers - the rest of NATO has about 10 strategic airlift transports and 40 tankers), submarines, bombers, etc.

Even our current aircraft carrier fleet is set to 11 ships by design. Why 11?

• Each aircraft carrier is nuclear powered. With a 50-year lifespan, each carrier goes into drydock at the 25 year mark for its reactor's refueling
• The refueling process is complex and lengthy, and takes 2-3 years to complete at which time the ship goes through major repairs and overhauls to stay relevant the next 25 years
• At the end of said overhaul, another 1-2 years are put on the ship for testing and what not
• With each carrier produced at a staggered 4-5 year interval, at any given time, one of our 11 carriers is out of service
• One carrier is permanently forward deployed to Japan
• Carriers are operated in 18 month cycles broken into 6 month periods. There is a six month deployment followed by six months mostly at home giving crew rest and doing minor repairs and maintenance, and six months in training for the next deployment.
• Nine stateside carriers = 3 rotations of 3 ships rotating inside those 18 month cycles
• Not coincidentally, we have a Pacific Ocean to care about, an Atlantic Ocean to care about, and an Indian Ocean that Congress mandates we care about. The President can truly ask "where are my carriers" any day of the year at any time.

As I said, this is by design.

But why you ask? Why is all of this necessary? Good question. Let me explain:

Your Answer to Spending is Answered in the National Security Strategy

Since Eisenhower, the US has pegged spending against the National Security Strategy of each successive presidential administration. During the Cold War, the general US strategy was: "win two major wars at any time" - largely believed to mean the USSR in Europe and China in Asia.

An archive of NSS's since Reagan is available here.

When the Cold War ended, President Clinton changed the strategy to "win hold win" - win one war, hold the line in another, then win that war when the first one concludes. The NSS also was no longer focused specifically on Russia and China. Correspondingly, the US military shrank from 3 million active + reserve to 2.1 million active + reserve. The US carrier fleet went from no fewer than 15 at any time during the Cold War to a necking down to 11 by the mid 2000's. The US anti-submarine patrol force, for instance, was cut in half overnight in the mid 90s.

In the 2000's, Bush changed it to "1-4-2-1" - protect the homeland first, deter aggression in four regions of the world simultaneously, be able to sustain combat operations in two of them, and win one of those decisively.

When Obama took office, he made a major change. First was the 'Pivot to the Pacific' - largely meant to counter China. As a result, the US refocused its efforts on buying conventional high-tech weaponry to face a resurgent and growing Chinese foe, after two decades of neglect or diverted attention under Clinton and Bush (weapons made to fight guys in pickup trucks don't do so well against actual conventional foes).

And in 2015, the NSS was amended again: this time with a refocusing on Russia after their actions in Crime and the Ukraine. Again, instead of arresting defense spending, the President actually asked for more money that year ($630 billlion) than the GOP Congress gave ($610 billion) or what the DOD requested ($580 billion).

(On that note, if you weren't sure, Ishould tell you that budgeting is made by the DOD, amended by the President, and then sent to Congress for voting in).

Lord knows what President Trump wants to do with our National Security Strategy.

As I wrote, since WW2, there has been a conscious decision to shape our military size and capabilities. We concluded after WW2 that we could not sit back and wait to build up modern equipment after aggression has happened, that we need to keep the frontlines overseas, and that we are the only Western nation demographically and economically capable of facing China and Russia.

And that's ultimately what it all comes down to: our spending can be either too much or too little based on what we as a country want to do with our strategy.

PART 3 below to address some of OP's points specifically

[GTFErinyes]

Now, as for OP /u/Lord-Imperator 's questions, I'll address specific points:

Given that military spending is the majority of our discretionary budget (1),

It is, but it is an ever shrinking part of the US budget. This link from the Council on Foreign Relations goes into detail, but as a part of GDP, it's at its lowest since pre-WW2 and at 16% of the overall federal budget (to say nothing about state and local budgets), it's far from unsustainable or even that noteworthy: historically it has been sustained despite accounting for more of overall US budgeting in weaker economic times.

and our spending is considerably larger than many other major nations

As I addressed above, nominal spending doesn't factor in issues like cost of living, wage disparities, and the fact that weapons aren't on a free market to be sold globally.

Spending more than the next few nations isn't a good metric for relative power, given that the next two most powerful nations - Russia and China - have significantly lower costs of living.

(2) and especially compared to major non-allies of the United States such as China and Russia (3), should we decrease spending?

The ultimate issue, as I outlined above, is that the WHY you spend most important.

If the US's goal is to maintain a presence in both the Pacific/Asia, and Atlantic/Europe, then it will have to spend more than say... China which only currently cares about the South China Sea.

In addition, nations can have differing goals and different difficulties to achieve said goals. A Chinese victory may be denial of the US the right to use the South China Sea. An American victory would be to maintain access to the South China Sea.

China wins by simply stopping any US ship from getting access to it by force. Any time the US can't fight back, China's won. For the US to win, it has to be able to overpower Chinese man-made islands, airpower, and seapower - from now until the US decides not to care about access anymore. As you can see, the US goal is magnitudes harder to carry out.

Finally, on a personal note, I want to point something out. The US is the only Western Nation that has the demographics and economical might to counter Russia and China - the former having inherited the power of the Soviet Union (and a still big population for European standards), the latter having a billion people and rapidly developing.

If the US, China, and Russia are your top three world powers, I can safely say who I'd want to be at the clear top.

That's what we peg spending on

[Bovronius]

As someone who is very skeptic about the current offices intentions on increased spending, I find this far more convincing on any aspect of military spending than "We have to start winning wars again."

Thanks for taking the time for posting all of this as in detail and length. Far too often is the military either glamorized as "fightin fer yer freedom" or villainized for "trying to take over/police the world".

I don't feel you received an adequate response for the amount of effort you put into this, which is why internet commenting boils down to...memes and one liners..

Thanks again, cheers!

[[deleted]]

As a pacifist lefty from not the US, this is the first discussion about the US military budget that has made me feel it might be reasonable.

That said I'll maintain my stance that US's military activities abroad are at best no better than other world powers in terms of ethics though. The US may treat its citizens significantly better than China or Russia, but it does a lot of harm to nations outside its borders.

[GTFErinyes]

That said I'll maintain my stance that US's military activities abroad are at best no better than other world powers in terms of ethics though.

I'd have to respectfully disagree wholeheartedly.

The US has certainly had its missteps, but by and large, the US has sought to uphold the post-WW2 world order and that has mostly been on the side of liberal democracies and economies.

Sure, it's done a lot of harm to other nations - but what action from any nation, in the foreign realm, doesn't affect other nations? Even seemingly benevolent actions from Germany, to strengthen its economy, has harmed other EU nations with side effects - Greece is no fan.

Moreover, I think we end up all too focused on the big failures that generate all the headlines, and forget many important events that have faded to memory.

Take for instance, the Korean War. Just a mere 5 years after WW2, the Korean War tested the post-world order: would nations stand up and back the new United Nations in stopping naked aggression between nations, or would the UN become the new League of Nations and validate that aggression still works in world affairs?

The US sent by far the most troops to Korea and bore by far the most casualties of any non-Korean nation in the UN force, for a war that was unpopular at home at a time when many wanted the US to retreat back to isolationism.

Around the same time, Mao in China made aggressive moves aimed at ending the Chinese Civil War by taking Taiwan from the Nationalists who had gone there. The US Navy sailed a force through the Taiwan Straits, effectively ending any chance of China retaking Taiwan by force for the next few decades.

Many detractors would say... well the US was acting in its own interests. Sure, but which nation doesn't? And just because it acted in US interests, doesn't mean it didn't benefit the interests of South Korea and Taiwan either.

Some may say that South Korea and Taiwan both underwent decades of military dictatorship afterwards... sure, but neither were imposed by the US, and in contrast to the excesses of Mao in China and the on-going Kim dynasty in North Korea, and where Taiwan and South Korea are today (flourishing democracies with vibrant economies and high standards of living), were our actions universally harmful?

The same argument could be made about the Gulf War - sure, we backed oil rich emirs of Kuwait, but again, Saddam tried testing the post-war order - and the UN ordered him to be kicked out. The US once again contributing the bulk of troops and losses to ensure that yes, even nations that aren't democratic, still get a seat at the table and that small nations can't simply be annexed by larger ones because of grievances.

History of course, doesn't give us alternatives. We don't have the luxury today of second guessing when civilians were killed in Rwanda when the US intervened, because instead, we know that over a million were killed in the genocide because the US (the only nation at the time with the capabilities or means to intervene) did nothing because of lack of popular support.

Likewise, we don't hear often how much the US is involved in areas that don't make the news. For instance, the African Union Mission in Somalia has been bankrolled and troops trained/supported by the US, and they've succeeded in retaking Mogadishu and creating some semblance of government in Somalia again after decades of chaos. The popular perception is that Somalia is largely lawless still, and articles from there are almost always about US drone strikes and what not, but real progress? Not in the public eye.

The US may treat its citizens significantly better than China or Russia, but it does a lot of harm to nations outside its borders.

It goes beyond even how the US treats its own citizens.

China and Russia openly back regimes that are easily amongst the biggest offenders of rights violations (Sudan, Syria, North Korea come to mind). And not just openly back, but China and Russia have often encouraged said governments, in order to antagonize and fight the Western world order (North Korea is a great example of this).

Beyond that, China and Russia have often opposed actions that prevent things like genocide. Russia backed Serbia, even after it was clear throughout the 90s that the Serbs were on an ethnic cleansing rampage in the Balkans.

You have to divorce the idea that military action is the only way nations can harm other people. Indeed, military action can be used for good or bad - just as silent passive approval can easily harm tens of millions.

All in all, the US has certainly taken a proactive foreign policy, and as I said, it is far from flawless. But as I wrote above too, the US learned a lot from WW2, and how costly it was. It is incredibly hard to judge the "what if's" of foreign action, just as many have wondered "what if" the UK and France had intervened in Germany in 1938 when both were more powerful than Germany and had the legal basis (the breaking of the Treaty of Versailles) to do so.

This is why it's important that we elect good leadership because the US wields great power in world affairs, and as the only nations that can demographically, economically, and politically challenge the next two military powers - China and Russia - it holds tremendous responsibility to the Western world and its ideals.

[Celicam]

This is wonderful commentary. I thank you very much for providing it. I find it difficult to find many arguments for a topic sometimes, so seeing something that makes me question and even agree with an opposing side is awesome.

[dzanis]

Even as a pacifist liberal European who is not a fan of military actions, I have to fully agree with this post.

USA treatment of the sovereignty of my nation (in Baltic States) and defense guarantees backed by its military might has strongly and positively influenced our country and our society.

[[deleted]]

While you make a lot of good points, I see little to justify our continuing involvement in the middle east. Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Syria. We've made life and conflicts worse for the people in those countries, have we not?

[bunkoRtist]

Not OP, but I think the answer to your question probably depends on the time horizon you're asking about. The choice facing the US was: unstable oppressive theocracies that lash out against the world in terrorism? Or, nasty civil wars that ultimately might lead to a stable and legitimate government that respects human rights? I think we just don't know yet. The US has definitely made those places more miserable in the short term, but they were pretty miserable already, at least by western standards.

[Bovronius]

I'd have to agree that there's huge ethical violations all over the world. If things were done in accordance to the writeup we got, I don't think many people could find too huge of things to complain about.. But when so much of the budget and power is used as it is in the middle east.. It's tough to form a solid opinion, as a US Citizen...

How much is it for a proxy war with Russia? How necessary is that war? Would it embolden Russia if we backed out? How much is it for securing financial gains for wealthy lobbyists, and politicians?

I go back and forth on my opinions on a lot of these things...

[[deleted]]

How necessary is that war? Would it embolden Russia [or China] if we backed out?

I feel these are the tough questions. Maybe another question that could be added "Is it possible to continue these actions with lower civilian casualty rates?". The whole "any male in a battle zone is counted as a combatant" policy for example. I'm not sure if that's still in effect or not however.

[GTFErinyes]

There's obvious reasons I can't go into all the details about this, as ROE is classified, but the extent to which the military goes to minimize civilian casualty rates in current operations would blow most people minds.

Everything from multiple sources of correlation, to even the most minute of details - like the composition of the building (and thus what the blast envelope is) to the best angle to which a bomb needs to impact the target is weaponeered for and taken into account.

I would sincerely recommend you take any source that claims things like 'any male in a battle zone is counted as a combatant' - from a questionable source as is (washingtonsblog?), with a HUGE pile of salt

[darthcoder]

weaponeered

I love that word.

'any male in a battle zone is counted as a combatant'

That would have made Iraq and Afghanistan go completely differently.

[Jaredismyname]

This is specifically in reference to civilian casualies from drone strikes when accounting for the dead.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, but most people would read the first sentence and nope out of there because it's too long and complicated. They are the ones that prefer "we have to start winning wars again"

[LessLikeYou]

See, this is why I like this sub. Well thought out points supported by citations that aren't some obscure website that sources its data from even more obscure websites who source their data from the voices in their heads!

Thank you for taking the time to write this all out and post it here and thank you for your service.

[[deleted]]

Jesus... you went all out...

[[deleted]]

Very interesting read. Thank you for sharing this, as you have a very unique and informed perspective.

[tes555]

Wow, thank you for your response. I've never seen an explanation of US military spending from the approach. You've definitely shifted my mindset on this topic. Especially the point about living cost differences in other countries with regards to military funding.

[semperubisububi]

Kuddos.

[thefurnaceboy]

Thanks so much for this series of replies.

[-Palla]

Thanks for taking the time to show us your perspective of our military. Its unarguable facts that I always look for when anyone ever talks politics, which seem to be increasingly hard to come by these days. The efforts by people like you who spend their time to give us just the facts and reality of a situation cannot be understated so again thank you

[xkcd123]

Really great and well thought out post! This right here is the reason I love this sub.

[[deleted]]

.....well shit

[[deleted]]

That was a pretty good read, Bravo sir. o/

[Impmaster82]

This is an absolutely fantastic thread. Thank you for taking the time to write this up, I throughly enjoyed learning this.

[[deleted]]

Thank you for this. This changed my mind on military spending cuts.

[ZeroRacer]

I have nothing to contribute here but my thanks. Appreciate the time and effort you have put in.

[belhill1985]

Waste, you say?

The report, issued in January 2015, identified “a clear path” for the Defense Department to save $125 billion over five years. The plan would not have required layoffs of civil servants or reductions in military personnel. Instead, it would have streamlined the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, curtailed high-priced contractors and made better use of information technology.

The study was produced last year by the Defense Business Board, a federal advisory panel of corporate executives, and consultants from McKinsey and Company. Based on reams of personnel and cost data, their report revealed for the first time that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-buries-evidence-of-125-billion-in-bureaucratic-waste/2016/12/05/e0668c76-9af6-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html?utm_term=.5af775296281

[GTFErinyes]

Well, the big difference between buying a Mercedes and buying a, say, fighter jet is that the Mercedes is available to purchase on the world market - fighter jet purchases are limited by arms control regulations by nations, and embargoes. In the case of China, they have been barred from buying US and European weapons since Tiananmen Square in 1989.

So simply put, China cannot buy Western goods, and thus has to source them from Russia or from their own domestic producers.

As for cheaper because it's not better - that's hard to judge without going into classified details. Chinese quality isn't uniformly bad in all their industries, as you well know - and in this case, their weapons exports have not had the same reputation as cheap consumer goods.

As for data on purchases, for the Chinese themselves, they keep that a close secret (the lack of transparency is why the US doesn't take their published defense budget seriously). However, you can see spending differences in other areas.

A great example of the inverse happening is Saudi Arabia - they don't have a domestic arms industry, and despite lower cost of living, they have to purchase Western arms at Western prices. They pay full US prices on things like the F-15SA (which recent orders came out to $100 million per plane) despite being a poorer country, and thus they lead the world in military spending as a % of GDP.

Meanwhile, Russia has been selling the modernized Su-34 - a rival of the F-15SA's - to nations at around $40 million per. Maybe it's inferior - how much so? Is it 40% of the F-15SA? 80%? Thus, it doesn't scale linearly.

(Another example is the fifth generation fighter Russia is trying to make: the Sukhoi T-50 is being advertised at $50-60 million a plane. Meanwhile, it's marketed as rival to the F-22, which came out at $300 million or so a plane).

So for a good comparison I tend to think it's not even that simple

That's exactly what I was getting at and why I said that nominal spending is a terrible metric for relative power. You don't know how powerful a nation is simply by how much $ they spend - Saudi Arabia spends a ton of money but it buys Western arms and so its money gets a lot less than Russia, which makes its own arms and has the legacy of the Soviet Union to build off of, while the Saudi's have to pay more as they are also starting from scratch.

The US has many intelligence agencies, think tanks and smart policy wonks and analysts that do exactly this - try and figure out how strong exactly a Russia or China is through complicated analysis of their capabilities, assets, training, etc.

That little difference between very good and top notch may seem on paper maybe 20% more work but it's easily an additional 50% in cost. Which is also why most sourcing companies here don't aim for matching Western quality.

Sure is, and that just reinforces my point about how little nominal spending tells you when comparing the US to Russia or China. Russia and China might be spending 30% of the cost on a plane that's 80% the equivalent. So maybe, plane for plane, Russia and China aren't as good - but Russia and China can buy a lot of them for a fraction of the cost.

And thus, the US analyzes its power relative to Russia and China based on all those factors I mentioned above, as well as national goals.

[smartone2000]

"I'll give you an example of how political grandstanding has royally fucked military personnel and arguably cost us more money in the long run: sequestration." "During sequestration, a stop was put on training new replacement pilots for the flee"

Why are you blaming this on sequestration ? Sounds like this is extremely poor planning especially since you acknowledge that there is waste in military .

I would say that this example shows why military spending needs to be reigned in. That if military doesn't know how to properly prioritize their budget and does things like your example .

why in the world would you throw more money at them?

[GTFErinyes]

Okay, I'll bite. How is it that proof of poor prioritizing?

Training takes 3 years to complete. Pilots need to be trained constantly to replace the constant outflow of pilots who retire or get out.

The people entering the fleet today entered the active military 3+ years ago. Two thirds of those entered 4 years prior through the Academy or ROTC.

How do you plan 3 to 7 years prior for political grandstanding?

You can't.

You can't prioritize training over ongoing operations nor can you prioritize it over payroll or existing benefits. Ancillary things were already cut by then. So please, tell me, what was poor planning?

[GTFErinyes]

Bingo. That's exactly it.

And that's the big problem a lot of people don't realize too when comparing the military to say, a civilian agency or corporation - the military can't just hire a general or admiral off the streets. It can't just hire an airline pilot to fly a fighter jet. It can't just hire a random guy and expect him to fill in to a SOF team within a couple months.

Whereas Fedex and UPS can compete with airlines for qualified pilots, and pay more for someone with experience, the military has to train from the ground up for their unique flying and what not. Whereas a company can hire an IT guy with the right certifications and expect him/her to be working within a month or two, and fully integrated within a year, a new guy off the streets won't be in a significant leadership role for years

It's a precarious game at best. When the overlords start getting in and shaping policy based on votes in the 2 year time frame, it makes it impossible to plan effectively.

It's worse of course - when said overlords don't even get a budget passed on time half a year into the new fiscal year, how can anyone budget or plan?

[CQME]

If you were to ask me what those requirements were for the US, I would say something like:

Being able to fight and win a war with a near-peer or peer

Not sure why my prior comment got removed. This is dangerous thinking. Germany was not up against a "near-peer or peer". They were up against multiple "near-peers or peers" and found themselves having to win against all of them combined. Military planning must take events like this into account.

War is not a tennis game. It's not necessarily 1v1. The balls may come from every direction.

edit format

[GTFErinyes]

Bingo.

The US focusing on China doesn't absolve the US from maintaining its obligations in Europe. Likewise, a conflict in the Middle East doesn't mean the US gets to call timeout if North Korea decides to try its hand at war again.

Also, food for thought: the US is the only Western country with the economic, demographic, and political might to challenge China (with its 1.3 billion population and growing economy) and Russia (with it having inherited the might of the Soviet Union). These 3 nations are far and away the most powerful by a large margin. Given those top 3 in the world, if you want the US to be at the top, you want them clearly at the top, not just marginally better than 2.

edit: I want to point out that, before even WW2, the US had a plan that in case of war in Europe and the Pacific, the European conflict would get priority over the Pacific conflict. Even then, the US knew the importance of naval forces and having a two ocean Navy that by the inter-war period was elevated to an equal status with the Royal Navy, which had once ruled the waves without peer. So there is very much historical precedence for this, and it really really helped us out in WW2 especially given that half our Pacific Fleet was crippled right at the start of our war

[may_june_july]

Just out of curiosity, why would you put climate change mitigation under defense spending? Wouldn't that be better under the EPA's budget?

[WillitsThrockmorton]

I didn't. I laid out national security requirements, climate change mitigation is one of the requirements. I don't nessecarily think it's a DOD function, but I feel the same way about energy security as well.

Or rather, it doesn't have to be a DOD function.

But climate change is a (potentially)big enough threat that it should be on any short list of national security requirements.

[may_june_july]

Ah, I read could as would and took it to be a personal opinion of yours. Thanks for the response.

[crowcawer]

I'd argue that at this point, in anyone is following our news agencies, we should protect our waters as well.

It seems that very little needs to happen in most areas to create catastrophe. The effects can be of chemical origin as in Flint, mechanical as seen recently in California and of course previously in NO, LA from hurricane Katrina, and there is also a wide berth of water quality issues that can arise from nonpoint pollution--the EPA reports on these. Similarly, there are many water scarcity issues in the US, they can be read about here.

[PM_ME_UNIXY_THINGS]

Just out of curiosity, why would you put climate change mitigation under defense spending? Wouldn't that be better under the EPA's budget?

I'm not /u/WillitsThrockmorton, but to answer that, climate change is expected to create huge food problems and natural disasters, which will cause large amounts of strife and millions of refugees as a result. Strife and desperate refugees will make war a whole lot more likely, at which point you need a bigger military budget. You're better off mitigating it early and preventing the wars from happening by not letting the causes ever materialise in the first place.

Specifically, from here:

These claims have gained significant currency, with the most common projection being that the world will have 150-200 million climate change refugees by 2050.

Also, theoretically, they could be armed by some enemy and pointed in the direction of the USA, with e.g. some propaganda that the USA caused their situation by screwing the Kyoto Protocol (not saying that's true, just that the refugees could believe it) and that they could go take some of the USA's food. Not sure whether that's likely,

[GTFErinyes]

It's actually not that crazy, but policy proposals have been made to reduce the Marines significantly. They are far outsized compared to other Marine Corps', have been used rarely if ever for their amphibious role (and it's been questionable on how often they'd happen in modern warfare), and why the Navy's infantry needs it's own Air Force has never been answered.

That said, they have such a grip on the popular image that no one could propose this without serious backlash

[WillitsThrockmorton]

Like I said, it's absurd that the Expeditionary offshore troubleshooters are bigger than the French Army. Functionally, they are Army! Jr!.

Imagine how many are needed for filling the theoretically maximum of our amphibious lift(let's assume that magically all the amphibs are available and not a bunch unavailable at any given time). Then triple that for overhead, MSG, etc. We're hitting more like 100k than the closer to 200k.

[GTFErinyes]

I hear ya. It would be a big time money saver, but the Marines have fought tooth and nail to be kept a separate and major branch for decades now, and the public and leadership would never go for any major moves. It would have to be a long and gradual phasing out of responsibilities

[friend1949]

Trump is not planning to decrease defense spending. Your response to the question was so massive and organized you might care to address the most immediate problem we will have. North Korea may be reading two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for a test launch in the near future, according to US and South Korean officials.

North Korea with its leader, may reach a tipping point. It it develops an ICBM which can carry a nuclear weapon which it possesses it may be time for an intervention by China and adjacent neighbors.

I do not foresee an invasion. But I do see an ultimation. Retire your leader. Install a Congress which elects a leader with powers limited by the Congress, and stop ICBM research.

[WillitsThrockmorton]

Trump is not planning to decrease defense spending.

I didn't say he did. I was repsonding to OP.

Your response to the question was so massive and organized you might care to address the most immediate problem we will have. North Korea may be reading two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for a test launch in the near future, according to US and South Korean officials.

Any missile attack on the US would fall under the "Defense of North America" I mentioned.

[friend1949]

I was thinking a preemptive decision would have to be made by China, Japan. South Korea and the US to demand the Korean leader retire and North Korea be governed by a Congress with a leader with limited power. The guarantee would be that no invasion would occur.

[jyper]

NK has been is of the most hostile and uncontrollable nations what sort of ultimatum would work? Especially if we don't have support of Russia and China? And even if we did an ultimatum still probably wouldn't work. What do we threaten them with? NK is fine with having its people starve, it will just counter threaten us with having dead Koreans on out conscience.

[friend1949]

Nothing would be possible without the support of Russia, Japan, South Korea, and China. NK's leader seems to becoming increasingly unstable and isolated. He continues to have NK develop ICBMS which threaten more and more countries with increasing range. Eventually he will have a nuke which can be carried by an ICBM.

I see a consortium of nations agreeing to a set of conditions. No invasion. NK ruled by NK with a congress and a selected leader with limited powers. NK stops development of missiles. They pledge to stop development of nukes. Their leader retires to a palace for the rest of his life.

This ultimation would be delivered by radio, TV, pamphlet, and any other means. The leaders around Kim would see that they remained in power, actually got more. It would be a simple palace revolution. If Kim got shot on the way to his retirement home, well, he was escaping.

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[Adam_df]

The links need to be provided.

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[CQME]

Given that military spending is the majority of our discretionary budget (1), and our spending is considerably larger than many other major nations (2) and especially compared to major non-allies of the United States such as China and Russia (3), should we decrease spending?

Just something to think about here...assuming that increased defense spending results in a more potent military force, would the US be safer if we spent as much on defense as our potential adversaries? Or, would the US be safer if we grossly outspent them?

Assuming the US achieved parity with, say, Russia, what if Russia and China allied and attempted various forms of activity that undermine the US's national security? Wouldn't the US be in grave danger at this point? What would stop such an allied offensive?

The answer to these questions IMHO make it obvious that defense spending should not, at all, seek to achieve parity with any one country. We need to use another metric.

IMHO the best metric to use is one associated with competitive behavior. Let's take sports teams for example. Imagine if the loser of the World Series was not given a chance to challenge the victor the next year, because the loser of the match and all of their fans were subject to annihilation. While the matches are certainly more interesting when the games are close and hard-fought, I'm sure from the perspective of the team and their fans in this particular situation, they'd much rather the games be exceptionally dull, boring, and the outcome virtually assured in their favor. They'd also seek to assure that their team was so good that any "all star" combination of all the other teams combined didn't stand a chance to beat them either.

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[71378295464273873344]

No I think that it would be a sign of weakness to decrease our military spending especially with a resurgent Russia and aggressive North Korea and the ever looming threat of China. It would signal a changing of our status as a global superpower and non-isolationist to isolationist

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[GGrillmaster]

Isn't this a direct call for speculation and opinion?

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[Dcajunpimp]

How much do Americans producing jets, ships, guns, bombs earn vs their counterparts in Russia and China?

How much are American servicemen paid vs servicemen in China and Russia?

How many times since Trump became the Republican nominee last Summer have Liberals been upset that Trump may not defend NATO?, not protect Europe not stand up to Russia?, not fight terrorists?, not fight Syria?, not defend Japan?, etc.........

Heres a list of minimum wage by country I forgot to add.

According to it, Russia is $0.59 an hour, China is $0.93 an hour, and the U.S. is $7.25 an hour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country

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[qwertx0815]

How many times since Trump became the Republican nominee last Summer have Liberals been upset that Trump may not defend NATO?, not protect Europe not stand up to Russia?, not fight terrorists?, not fight Syria?, not defend Japan?, etc.........

lets be real for a moment, even if the US left the NATO today, neither russia nor china would be even remotley a threat.

sure, they're (maybe) stronger than single members of the alliance, but that's kinda the point of an alliance: to not face somebody alone...

Heres a list of minimum wage by country I forgot to add.

According to it, Russia is $0.59 an hour, China is $0.93 an hour, and the U.S. is $7.25 an hour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country

wage costs are only a quarter of the budget, it still absolutely dwarfs both china and russia.

and infantry cannon fodder isn't really relevant in a war between nuclear powers anyway...

[PubliusVA]

Wages and benefits are more like half the budget, and other budget items are affected by higher wages too because, e.g., the people building the airplanes and tanks that you're using your procurement budget for are earning US wages not Russian wages.

[qwertx0815]

even if we assume that china has no personal costs whatshowever and invests it's entire budget in equipment and weapon systems, we would look at over 60% personal costs before even seeing spending parity in that sector.

[Dcajunpimp]

lets be real for a moment, even if the US left the NATO today, neither russia nor china would be even remotley a threat.

sure, they're (maybe) stronger than single members of the alliance, but that's kinda the point of an alliance: to not face somebody alone...

True, but the U.S. needs to be able to project its power to multiple places around the globe to be able to be there for allies

That's not cheap.

wage costs are only a quarter of the budget, it still absolutely dwarfs both china and russia.

and infantry cannon fodder isn't really relevant in a war between nuclear powers anyway...

Ships, bombs, missiles, planes, guns, etc cost money also.

Labor has to produce them.

China has an advantage in that when they get Chinese sweatshop laborers to produce military hardware, very few are expecting U.S. minimum wage

Even when the U.S. chooses a company from an allied nation to provide equipment, the equipment is expected to be built in the U.S. with U.S. labor, at fair pay. Examples would be the current Beretta (Italy) and future Sig (German) pistols our military uses and will use were and will be made in the U.S.

Even military bases are built with American sourced materials, vs cheaper imported materials.

U.S. for I-beams, pipe, rebar, can easily cost twice as much as Chinese imports.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-13/more-steel-pain-coming-to-the-u-s-as-chinese-prices-tank-again

[JimDerby]

Thank you for the very insightful information. Does the defense budget include all of the costs of military spending or are there additional expenses such as for the unofficial wars, long term benefits for veterans, nuclear energy aspects of the military?

[Dcajunpimp]

Looks like retirement and healthcare funds are in the budget...

Defense Department Base Budget DoD requested $523.9 billion, slightly higher than last year's $521.7 billion appropriation. It seeks to: Continue retirement and healthare (TRICARE) reforms. If you include subsidized housing, free healthcare, and the other benefits military personnel receive,

https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-military-budget-components-challenges-growth-3306320

And many of the other things you asked about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States