Tag: 2016 defense budget

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2016 Defense Budget exposes U.S. to danger

Defense spending for the next fiscal year, excluding veterans’ benefits, was finalized this month at $572.7 billion, a $94 billion decrease over the amount spent in 2009, when President Obama entered office.   Defense News projects that the pre-Obama spending levels will not be reached, if at all, until well after 2020.

A Defense Dept. review of the budget emphasizes what the FY 2016 deal does not adequately address, including:

NEAR TERM: — Balancing capability, capacity and readiness;

— Terrorism, instability across the Middle East and North Africa;

— Rising pressure from Russia and China;

— Globalization of advanced technology;

— Rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific region;

— Cyber defense, attribution and response; and
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— Short-term budget deals, constrained resources and fiscal uncertainty.

LONG TERM: Priorities and uncertainties for fiscal 2017 and beyond include, among others, McCord said, nation-states like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea; ISIL and the global counterterrorism challenge; balancing capability, capacity and readiness; compensation and retention for today’s force; the Force of the Future; innovation in investments and practices; operating in space and cyberspace; and modernizing the nuclear deterrent in the 2020s and 2030s.

As noted by the Department of Defense, reduced support for the military comes at a time when Russia and China have both dramatically increased their military spending and aggressiveness, made significant technological strides, and engaged in aggressive actions.  It also comes as North Korea moves rapidly ahead in nuclear armaments, and the threat from Islamic terrorists escalates to extremely dangerous new levels.

PressTV reports that “Russia’s Defense Ministry has announced an increase in future military equipment procurement…The announced plans included the annual purchase of some 200 planes and helicopters, up to 30 ships and submarines, and around 600 armored vehicles, the UPI reported on Tuesday.”The state program for armaments extending till 2021 will increase the share of modern weapons and military hardware to no less than 70 percent,” said Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces General Valery Gerasimov during a press briefing in Moscow.

China, by contrast, continues its rapid escalation in military spending. According to a CNBC report  “Beijing’s defense spending is estimated to grow 7 percent annually until 2020…By 2020, the center of gravity of the global defense spending landscape is expected to have continued its gradual shift away from the developed economies of Western Europe and North America and towards emerging markets, particularly in Asia.”

In addition to Beijing’s announced spending, a Quartz.com reports that “China is responsible for 30% of the world’s secretive defense spending,reports Transparency International (TI), a Berlin-based anti-corruption NGO. Secretive spending, defined by TI as “military expenditure where no meaningful details are released either to the public or parliament,” is leading to corruption at home and mistrust in the Asia-Pacific region that could destabilize the area, the organization says… No information is available on acquisition planning, and only broad details are disclosed on actual and planned purchases.”

An analysis by The Week  opines: “The defense budget is often constrained for economic or political reasons. The gap between what the United States actually spends and what it takes to fully resource and execute the strategy is risk. Unfortunately, risk is difficult to measure, but all too easy to ignore. A particular threat may be out of sight and out of mind, but it still exists and could still harm a vital interest of the United States. It’s similar to buying cheap car insurance. It may save a few bucks and turn out fine as long as you never have an accident. That is what it means to accept risk… Since the imposition of the Budget Control Act in 2011, the base defense budget (excluding war costs) has gone down by 15 percent in real terms, while the threats to U.S. vital interests have, if anything, increased. The Heritage Foundation’s 2015 Index of U.S. Military Strength assessed the current capacity, capability, and readiness of the U.S. military as “marginal.”

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The President’s flawed defense policy, and Republican complicity

As the President enters into his seventh federal budget era, it is clear that his defense policy can be summarized in a single concept: drain as much funding from national security as possible in order to continue to provide more dollars for his greatly expanded entitlement programs.

To accomplish its goal, the White House has essentially surrendered the safety both of the United States and its allies. Several examples:

  • Budget cuts forced the departure of experienced armed forces personnel,
  • The U.S. Army will soon be reduced to levels below that of North Korea,
  • the U.S. Navy is dwindling from a global defense force to one that is rapidly becoming a mere regional power, (for the first time since WWII ended, no U.S. aircraft carrier is available for regular patrol in the East Pacific.)
  • missile defense programs were cancelled or delayed,
  • key allies have been or are in the process of being alienated,
  • American tanks were withdrawn from Europe,
  • a treaty was signed allowing Russia to gain or retain strategic and conventional nuclear superiority,
  • While every other atomic weapons-bearing nation has modernized extensively, only belated and inadequate updates have been planned for the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

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As noted in recent budget hearings, the Pentagon’s 10-year budget projections have absorbed more than $750 billion in cuts, or more than three-quarters of the trillion-dollar cuts that would be required if sequestration is allowed to run its course. The fiscal year 2016 budget is at a near-historic low, representing about 14 percent of total federal discretionary and nondiscretionary outlays.

The results have been staggeringly dangerous. Moscow has entered into a new era of expansionism, not just in beginning the process of reconstituting the Soviet Empire but in rapidly moving into Latin America, as well as threatening NATO members in Europe.  It has embarked on a vast and costly program to make its armed forces the most modern and best equipped in the world.

China’s unprecedented military buildup and U.S. timidity combined to allow Beijing to steal resources from the Philippines and assert flawed territorial claims against almost all of its neighbors.

North Korea has expanded its nuclear prowess into a force that can threaten any spot on the planet, and Iran is poised to become the dominant power in the Middle East.

The White House’s lessening of sanctions against its nuclear program remains a text-book example of how not to succeed in negotiations. Terrorist forces are moving confidently into Africa. The premature withdrawal from Iraq led directly to the conditions allowing ISIS to flourish, and the impending withdrawal from Afghanistan may lead that region to a similar fate. The U.S. didn’t even respond with force when its own ambassador was assassinated in Benghazi.

Traditionally, Republicans have served to check the impulse of the hard left to divert excessive funds from defense to social welfare programs.  However, despite words of bluster, the Republican leadership continues to adhere to the sequester, which, in response to budget deficits that are largely the results of excessive entitlement spending, slices all programs indiscriminately. They have failed to respond effectively, either by legislation, budgetary means, or public statements to the reckless disregard for national security evidenced by the Obama Administration.  The revolt of several Republican potential presidential candidates may be a long-overdue reality check for the GOP brass.

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U.S. defense spending at crisis point

During the past several years, Washington’s response to the vast and growing threats from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Islamic terrorism has been, irrationally, to sharply reduce the defense budget.

Defense Secretary  Ashton B. Carter recently noted  that “DoD’s 10-year budget projections have absorbed more than $750 billion in cuts, or more than three-quarters of the trillion-dollar cuts that would be required if sequestration is allowed to run its course…DoD’s fiscal year 2016 budget is at a near-historic low, representing about 14 percent of total federal discretionary and nondiscretionary outlays.”

In 2010, the total defense budget was $757 billion.  The 2016 budget is approximately $585 billion. Although the President and Congress differ somewhat in the way the funding is provided, the figure for both is essentially similar, and is in keeping with the sequester.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) noted that “We believe that [we] cannot continue to [to defend the nation] within the caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act [sequestration.] They blame both President Obama as well as Republicans who continue to abide by sequestration. “There is no national security basis for sequestration. Within the past year Russia has challenged the postwar order in Europe by invading and annexing the territory of another sovereign nation. A terrorist army that has proclaimed its desire to attack the United States and its allies now controls a vast swath of territory in the heart of the middle east. Iran continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons while expanding its malign influence throughout the region. And China has stepped up its coercive behavior in Asia, backed by its rapid military modernization…Military spending is not to blame for out-of-control deficits and debt.  It is now [at] the lowest [share of federal spending] since before World War 2.
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America’s nuclear arsenal, the only such force among the nuclear powers that has not undergone substantial modernization, has been cut from several thousand two decades ago to just several hundred today. Deployed war heads have been reduced from 9,000 twenty years ago to just 1,600 currently.  For the first time in history, Russia has more strategic nuclear firepower than the America, and a commanding ten to one advantage in tactical weapons.

Key parts of the U.S. defense establishment are at the breaking point, including the Air Force’s Drone fleet, as reported in the Daily Beast which reports that “overworked drone crews have had their leaves cancelled and suffered damage to their careers because they could not attend required professional military education courses.”

The U.S. Army will soon reach its lowest level since before World War 2, leaving a force smaller than North Korea’s. The Navy will be the smallest since World War I, and the Air Force will be at historic lows. The Marine Corps suffers drastic shortfalls in equipment, training and personnel. All this occurs while Russia and China build up their forces to unprecedented levels of size and capability.