Robert M. Gates, the Defense Secretary of the United States, announced Monday that there will be major renovations to the current Pentagon budget. The budget, comprised of over $500 billion, handles all military funding including funding for the armed services, military facilities, equipment, weapons and innovative technology. Gates has proposed drastically cutting into the budget for more traditional military technology such as deep-water Navy ships, missile programs and F-22 fighter jets. Accompanying these cuts will be a cutback in the number of Army brigades, the cancelation of a new Presidential helicopter and a reduction in the number of Army land vehicles. The trade-off is that Gates will increase spending on technologies to help combat terrorism and other current threats. He would like to add soldiers to the army, increase spending on helicopter production, spend $2 billion on battlefield intelligence gathering, increase numbers of the F-35 fighter and continue to produce drone jets such as the Reaper.
One interesting concept on this is how this information is so readily available to the public. The article goes into a lot of depth about what is being cut and what isn’t and what is currently in development. It is hard to draw a line between transparency, which is a good thing because tax payers get to see what their money is actually doing, and just giving away too much information. Here Gates does a good job of informing people on what is happening but yet conceals enough so that others with alternative motives, terrorists for example, can do practically nothing with the information.
At a first glance, the article may seem upsetting for those that believe the military is one of the most important and high priorities when discussing the U.S. budget. One may think that the proposed budget cuts on military spending looks too much like what the Clinton administration did in the 1990s. Clinton drastically cut military funding to the point where some even blame the cuts for the U.S.’s poor preparation in Iraq. But unlike Clinton, Gates is proposing the right cuts and smart additions. The Cold War is over. There is no need for military technologies designed for large combat between two or more huge superpowers. In today’s world, country leaders stress diplomacy rather than war. Globalization is a huge ideology and today’s world is a lot more closely knit than that of 20 years ago. Counties all across the Earth rely on each other. The U.S. relies on imports from China among others and those countries rely on the U.S. for their business. This is just one of hundreds of examples. The U.S. relies on China even more now as they continue to borrow enormous amounts of money from them in light of the recent economic recession. The point being made here is that war today is different from war 20 years ago. The U.S. needs to adapt to its surroundings and focus on technology that will help them to fight in this modern environment. With the economic recession in full gear, it is the perfect time to start to phase outdated technology out and bring in new technology equipped to tackle the obstacles of a changing world.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/us/politics/07defense.html?ref=politics
4 comments:
While I do believe that these cuts are right to do given our recent economic struggles, I think Gates should reconsider the types of programs that he is planning on cutting. The biggest red flag that I came across concerns missile defense. When I saw that Gates plans on cutting the spending on missile defense by $1.4 billion, I wasn't sure if that was the best thing to do right now. I can understand him cutting such programs as the one for a new helicopter for the president (like he needs another one of those), but to cut back on our missile defense system just doesn't seem like the right thing to do, at least not right now. For example, it seems like every other day we hear news about North Korea and their development of some new missile or bomb; they just recently tested their new long-range missile in direct defiance of the UN's request not to do so. Personally, I think that long-range missiles pose the biggest threat to the U.S. as a country because there is no country that can match our Army and Navy. However, that won't matter when they launch missiles at us from the other side of the globe. While it might be a lot of money to keep this program going, I think that it should not be cut, at least not until the threat of long-range missiles is stymied or our defenses are as perfect as they can be.
As I mentioned before, I do agree with Gates' cutting certain programs in favor of others. For example, unnecessary spending on a new helicopter for President Obama is nowhere near as important as increased spending on modern warfare technology. Un-manning the front lines is something that should be close to the top of the list for our military. A start has been made with the Reaper, which is an automatic fighter plane that can locate and attack targets without the need of a pilot inside, and advances are constantly being made on "robot soldiers," such as the SWORD. With the level of technology in the world today, and doubtless increase of technology as each day goes by, it is smart for the United States to look into these options and develop them as soon as possible. Doing so will not only make the military safer and save lives of our soldiers, but it will also benefit us in regards to other countries where the means to do these things are not present.
Brandon- it is still important to note however, that Gates is simply changing how the budget is distributed. You comment on how we are in an age of diplomacy, yet defense spending is still the highest it’s been since Cold War times. Does that make sense? If these economic relationships to other countries, which often times put us into greater and greater debt, are so strong, do we need to have such a large standing army? I understand Bush’s legacy about fighting the War on Terror and I understand Obama’s desire to continue this in an effort to preserve global leadership, but in a time where America is fragile, should selfishness really be out of the question? Now I’m not supporting the dismantling of the United States military, nor do I support the reallocation of these funds, I simply see it as a means to lower the national debt.
I never thought I’d agree with the man, but looking at the points addressed in a recent press conference by Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, it is easy to see how many of these problems can be remedied by cutting some of the military budget. Frank suggested $160 billion be cut saying “It’s absurd to talk about reducing the deficit while giving a pass to the military budget. We can reduce military spending without in any way undercutting our national security.” Frank’s plan, according to a document released by his office, would reduce military spending by a total of $160 billion, with $100 billion of the savings coming from money currently being spent on the Iraq War. Other cuts would include a reduction of about 75 percent in the funding requested by the Bush administration for “nuclear forces,” as well as deep funding cuts for the development of controversial weapon systems. It’s important to note here that America could survive without such a monetary devotion to its military.“No one is denying that America should be by far the strongest country in the world,” said Frank. “But we are talking about by how many multiples we have to be the strongest…and whether or not there is some money to be saved in doing that.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2193668/posts
Many former high-ranking Republicans such as Dick Cheney have remarked that President Obama has made America unsafe. I agree with Corey on the fact that the missile defense shield should be a high priority and should gain even more funding instead of getting cuts. North Korea just tested long-range missiles, and we should be preparing for a complete defense of nuclear weapons. (See Post Below on Nuclear Weapons.) If a terrorist organization were to get their hands on a nuclear weapon we could not respond with a nuclear attack of our own. Our only hope is to be able to stop the nuclear attack from happing. Such cuts are not needed. Even the American people will not mind a raise in certain areas such as defense. No American can argue that it is not important to protect national security at all. Certainly Obama could have found other areas to make budget cuts other than matters of extreme national security such as an Anti-Ballistic Missile system.
The Reaper is a huge advancement in military technology, which really needs to be perfected as soon as possible. I recently spoke with a high-ranking Naval Intelligence Officer, who saw one of the Reaper planes in action. He predicts it will someday eliminate the need for an Air Force. This is huge. An elimination of an Air Force would truly save countless lives every year. There is great potential for the development of these unmanned planes.
Another problem with decreasing the military budget is that military spending not only improves the safety of Americans, but also acts as an economic stimulus of sorts. Most government contracts given out for defense and military spending are given to American companies. In other words the budget cuts are taking away business from American companies and American workers.
Also, anything Barney Frank says on the military should not be taken seriously as it hasn’t by the general public. He has never been an advocate for the military, and would probably propose to cut military spending under any circumstances.
It is reassuring to find the Defense Secretary of the Obama administration to be a Republican that has served under multiple presidents of both parties. Gates is not another goon of Obama’s clan like Hilary Clinton or any of the rest of his democratic buddies. He is a person who knows the military and knows it well. He isn’t a promoter of castrating the military and would never cut it down to the point where it wouldn’t be able to function efficiently. He’s a Republican for goodness sake. He isn’t a Barney Frank, who quite frankly, is about as unqualified and the most biased person to talk about military cuts as humanly possible. In defense to the missile funding cuts, he isn’t cutting the program completely. He’s just cutting down. We already have the technology for missiles, it’s not like we need to develop it. It is understood that there is concern over this portion of the plan and that this concern is justified but the United States would never shut down its missile program completely nor cut the funding so much that it would be greatly detrimental.
In regards to the American jobs being lost, Gates is planning on adding funding for new technology to the budget as well as cutting the funding for outdated technology. This may mean that ship builders may lose their jobs and some others that work in assembly lines creating the more traditional military technology. But, let’s face it, these kind of manual labor jobs have been declining for a while now. The world is different. More people go to college now than they did back in the 1950s. Jobs have shifted. People are going back to school to get degrees so they can adapt to this new environment. There will still be American jobs but they won’t be going to the traditional factories, they will be going to the people who can design software and implement it. They will go to the people who can come up with innovative ideas and make them become a reality.
There is no doubt that this world is in fact more closely knit than it was years ago. And it does rely on diplomacy now. Critics may say it doesn’t because defense spending is at an all time high. Okay, but hasn’t the price of everything gone up in recent decades. The technology that is being utilized now is a lot more expensive than the technology of the former half of this century. And to further prove the point, when was the last war between two or more major world superpowers. The answer is World War II and that ended in 1945. There hasn’t been a conflict of that scale since and it’s become that kind of warfare is outdated. The bottom line here is that this country is in a recession and cuts need to be made everywhere including the military. This is a touchy area but unfortunately it has to be touched. Gates is using his experience in doing what he believes is right and we must all put our trust in him.
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