Who's Afraid of a Defense Cut? Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at abu muqawama, Travis Sharp of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation makes a point that's really been nagging at me for a few days:

Liberals’ rebuttal to the accusation that Obama is cutting defense spending has been “No he’s not. He’s actually increasing it.” Don’t most liberals think we could properly protect the United States with less defense spending? We’re not allowed to say that or what?

I've noticed the same thing also. Here at National Security Network, our crack stuff has been on this issue, correcting misstatements; and over at TPM, Josh Marshall and Brian Beutler have been on the war path. Now I'm all for correcting the record, but there is something strange about this whole experience: shouldn't progressives want to see President Obama cut the defense budget?

Now I understand that many Republicans are spreading the "Democrats are cutting defense spending" meme because they want to portray the party as weak, but while political necessary, it's a little unseemly when Democrats bend over backwards to say "no, no we love the military so much too; we can spend half a trillion dollars as well on its bloated budget."

The fact is, from a progressive perspective there are many priorities that this country needs to focus on over the next few years - health care reform, climate change legislation, infrastructure improvement, rebuilding our civilian national security and foreign policy capacity etc.  Now of course a lot of this money will in the short-term come from deficit spending. No complaints there; I think it's the right budgetary move. But we cannot borrow forever and at some point politicians have to make choices and look for places to cut spending - and let's face it the defense budget provides some real opportunities.

Now I get the idea that perhaps this is the wrong time to cut defense spending - maybe the political costs are too significant or the immediate needs for the military are too great and an immediate cut in defense spending is not feasible; but liberals aren't doing themselves any favors when they try to play the "me-too" game in defense spending. At some point this country is going to have a moment of reckoning when we wake up to the fiscal reality that low taxes and half a trillion in defense spending with massive entitlement spending is no longer feasible. For far too long when it came to making these types of choices, defense spending was off the table.

When does that end? When do we start having a real debate in this country about the amount of money we spend on defense? If this current debate is any indication, it's not going to happen any time soon. I fear that the short-term politics of pushing back on the GOP will have long-term consequences for progressive's domestic and foreign priorities - and it won't be good.

Comments

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[Don Bacon]

One would think that at some point some bright progressive analyst would say:

Hey, I believe that defense spending ought to be related to some sort of threat analysis. That makes sense. In fact, the Pentagon has published a threat analysis as a part of its most recent National Defense Strategy. This analysis mentions primarily the threat from terrorist groups. Now this threat, which results in crimes, is better countered by intelligence and policing as various studies have shown. In fact the terrorism threat is, and has been, exacerbated by military operations.

The only other threats mentioned in the NDS, published last year, are from Iran, Korea, Russia and China. Obviously these are fanciful threats and none of these countries currently threatens the USA.

Now a case can be made for being prepared for a threat that currently doesn't exist, and that should be the basis for any discussion on the huge, and growing, military budget.

Also under discussion should be any future plans to invade and occupy other countries, a strategy which currently has the US military up against the wall while it drains the Treasury. Oops -- that's already happened. Runs up the bill with China, I mean.

[Peace]

There needs to be a redifintion of national security in this country. I believe that global warming and an underperforming economy due to an poorly funded educational system is more of a threat to national security than either pirates or terrorists.

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There needs to be a redifintion of national security in this country.