A Half Trillion Dollar Military Budget Is Not Enough?

by Gerard Emershaw

The United States is prepared to wave the white flag and surrender to its enemies. Well, according to neoconservatives at least. Retired General Wesley Clark has cautioned: “We cannot go back to a pre-World War II Army with a bunch of people marching around with broomsticks on their shoulders doing right face and right shoulder arms.” Former Vice President Dick Cheney—who like most neoconservative RINOs believes that deficits do not matter—scoffed: “I can guarantee you there's never going to be a call from a future secretary of defense to Obama to thank him for what he's done to the military.” What has President Obama done to the United States? According to Cheney, “enormous long-term damage.” Of course, American soldiers are going to be marching around with broomsticks instead of guns.

Wait, what? American soldiers are not going to be marching around with broomsticks on their shoulders? What Cheney is talking about is the announcement that the Obama administration is going to be spending a mere $496 billion in FY 2015 on the military. According to Newsmax:

For the five years ending in 2019, the Defense Department's budget forecast includes $115 billion more in spending than currently authorized in congressionally mandated levels under the budget cuts called sequestration.

The plan calls for requesting $535 billion in 2016, or $35 billion more than the sequestration level; $544 billion for 2017, or $31 billion over the cap; $551 billion in 2018, or $27 billion over the cap; and $559 billion in 2019, or $22 billion over the cap.

One would think that a half trillion dollars a year could buy a lot of broomsticks. Maybe even a lot of modern weaponry. Nations like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea manage to constitute alleged threats to the United States while spending only a fraction of what the United States does on military. How are these nations able to afford to equip their soldiers with more than broomsticks?

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s plan will cut the size of the military:

Hagel's plan would reduce the Army by 6 percent to about 490,000 personnel by 2015 from about 522,000 today, accelerating by two years the Army's plan to reach that total by 2017. Hagel’s proposal also calls for reductions to about 450,000 by 2019—30,000 fewer than the active-duty force in September 2001 before the terrorist attacks on the U.S.

These cuts would make the United States military smaller than it has been since 1940. Of course, the United States is not fighting total war against rival superpowers across the globe. The U.S. military also possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons along with Stealth fighters, drones, etc. which makes a large standing army unnecessary.

The only reason that large standing armies are necessary is if it is going to be misused. Corporatist wars of aggression overseas require large armies with bottomless budgets. However, such wars stand in stark opposition to the advice and practice of the Founders. Such wars are expensive and produce blowback. If one believes that military cuts are off the table, then one is not truly fiscally conservative. The purpose of the military is to defend the Republic and not to protect foreign despots, multinational corporations, or the bottom line of the Military-Industrial Complex. Deficits do matter, Vice President Cheney. The national debt—and not the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, or North Koreans—is the greatest threat to national security. The military budget simply cannot be treated like a sacred cow or one day soon there may not be a Republic left for the military to defend.