Why Biggest Is Not Necessarily the Best

The United States has the biggest, the most technically advanced and the most expensive military this world has ever kinown. That much military may be far more than we need to adequately defend against any real or imagined threats, that much military may not only not protect us, it may actually threaten our security.

This is how we stack up

Rest of the World $500 billion 2004 est.
United States       $623 billion FY08 budget
China                   $ 65.0 billion 2004
Russia                  $ 50.0 billion
France                 $ 45.0 billion 2005
United Kingdom      $ 42.8 billion 2005 est.
Japan                   $ 41.75 billion 2007
Germany              $ 35.1 billion 2003
Italy                     $ 28.2 billion 2003
South Korea         $ 21.1 billion 2003 est.
Source: Global Security.org other sources differ in detail but not in substance. All agree US spends at least 8 times more than any other country spends


There are at least four good reasons why having the biggest and most advanced military may not be good for the United States and may even threaten our national security.

1. Expensive. Six hundred plus billion dollars is a lot of money. If an inch was a dollar that  military budget will take you to the moon and back 20 times when the moon is at its apogee.   While we gild this lily far more than would be necessary to repel any conceivable enemy, real and pressing needs are neglected. The excess military budget, that which is left over after adequately preparing for national defense, could pay for universal health care, could repair the infrastructure, could fast track repairs to the environment and could end dependency on fossil fuels – the genuine threats to national security. When will the public wake up and will any politician question whether the military we have is much more than we need and far more than we can afford?
   
2. Feel the need to use it. Excited by its new technology - its mother of all bombs, its pilotless drones, its bombers equipped for surgical strikes, its fancy helicopters, its spanking new tanks and armored vehicles, its body armor and its other good stuff - a military will find an excuse to use it. It could no more be stopped than a little kid with a Christmas wrapped gift could be stopped from finding out what was inside.                                                                                                                                                                                        So, of course, we found an excuse to use it. We were careful, we picked a nation that could not put up much of a fight. We knew this because we tested it a decade before. We wanted the world to know how far we - the mightiest nation ever, the king of the hill, the top of the heap, the envy of all - had surpassed Alexander, Napoleon, and other lesser lights by ‘shocking and awing’ the hell out of Iraq.                                                                     One small problem. What do you do after the shock and awe? The shock was fine. But what do you do for an encore? And the awe was something else. We had hoped the awe was so impressive that all would applaud and throw flowers. It wasn’t that kind of awe. The awe that came with the accidental killing of a bunch of mothers and  kids was, “Awe shucks, we didn’t mean to do that, we apologize for the collateral damage.”  Not a very gratifying awe.                                                                                                       Now with as many as a million of Iraqis killed, another two million in exile and yet another 2 million displaced within the country maybe showing off the most powerful military the world has ever known might not be such a hot idea. That military is not quite as awesome as it once was with so many of the troops suffering from anxiety, depression and stress.
3. Reduces national security. Once getting others to fear us means also getting others to distrust us and even begin to undermine us. Our use of military has lost us friends. The Spanish government that supported us fell to one that opposed us. Tony Blair a comrade in arms was forced to resign and his Labour Party once seemingly invincible now faces likely defeat. And the most loyal of all, John Howard not only found his Liberal (that is Australian for conservative) government going down but he, almost unprecedented, lost his seat in Parliament. Those who supported our venture in Iraq, “The Coalition of the Willing,” found it dangerous to their political health.                                                              But that is not all. We not only lost friends, we frightened those who could be our rivals. China, in particular, had not been much interested in building up its military, having enough available to deal with any likely threat, announced it was about to add some shock and awe to its military. I don’t know why, they could do all the damage they desired with lead in toys or poisons in food, or by not absorbing the debt that is needed to maintain our bloated military.                                                                                                  With a revitalized arms race on the horizon, Condilessa Rice was sent to be her school marm self as Secretary of State and chastise the Chinese for increasing their military investment. She was her usual unconvincing self (if she can’t persuade her own state department staff how does she expect to persuade those that don’t work for her). We shouldn’t be surprised that China has decided to emulate us. As will Russia, thereby upping the risk and making the world and us far less secure.                                                And then there is precedent. Once we decide to unilaterally attack and invade a country that did not threaten us, we are hardly in a position to criticize other nations that do the same. That is exactly what Russia did when it invaded Georgia, except Russia had a bit more justification. It was coming to the rescue of a small slice of Georgia, Ossetia, that did not want to be part of Georgia. Because Georgia is our ally, our friend, our puppet, and its president (all right, dictator), a neocon educated in the US whose military was equipped and trained by us and by Israel, it is right and proper that our president, George W. Bush, came to its defense and told Russia to butt out because the world does not look fondly on big nations that beat up on little ones.                                                     And he is certainly right about that.                                               He might have been more effective if he said, “Hey, Russia, you don’t want to happen to you what has happened to us and have the whole world hate you and have your president reduced to a laughing stock everywhere, do you?”                                     Now Russia didn’t invade until Georgia used its superior military to beat up on little Ossetia. Ossetia wants to secede. Georgia says it can’t and we support the Georgians.  However if secession is wrong, how can there be a Georgia because it seceded from Russia when the Soviet Union imploded.                                              The point is we lost all moral authority when we decided to unilaterally invade a little country and when we did that we made the world a far more dangerous and insecure place.
4. A massive military weakens alternatives and reduces diplomacy to irrelevance. A massive military that looks for every opportunity to show it off what it has leaves little room for negotiation and the development of wide ranging support for an integrated opposition to terrorism or any other threat to peace or tranquility. Our over-reliance on the military brings a comic book essence to international relations. As long as we have Superman on our side who needs diplomacy? We sow what we reaped, an absence of depth, superficial analysis of alternatives, and an unwillingness to engage in serious negotiations. It is “damn the torpedo,tornados, tomatoes." (Don’t tell me you have forgotten The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes? Ever bit as a clear and present danger as was the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq). It is,"Full speed ahead." With no idea of where we are heading. When we possess the greatest war machine ever why waste time thinking about direction? We can't afford to sit around thinking while the bad guys are running around evil doing. OK, so we don’t know who the bad guys are, so we don’t have any idea of what we are doing and what we hope to accomplish. So what? What really matters is that we are two hours ahead of schedule and the surge is working.

How big a defense budget do we need? Far less than half of what we now spend. But more importantly than hazarding a guess on what the defense budget should look like, what is truly needed is a full, wide and open discussion on the role of the United States in the world. In fact there is nothing that would do more for our national security than reestablishing the rule of law and reasserting a respect for democratic principles.