What are the 'big changes' in the defense budget that progressive-minded folks should cheer?

[bigtree]

We're caught up in a dynamic where the republicans are so far off in their criticism of the defense budget that many Democrats have made themselves content with defending the budget against those ridiculous attacks and shying away from any substantive criticism at all.

Many responses to criticisms here like to point to articles and assessments which tout the 'historic' nature of the budget omissions and cuts, but all I see when I look at the way the Pentagon has prepared the budget pie is over $20 billion in new spending requests above last years budget. I see the big increases in vet and active duty health, housing, and other benefits and needs. Those items, however, don't make up the bulk of the spending.

There are still multi-billions in orders for new carriers and fighters (albeit in reduced numbers from the last budget and the elimination of some weapon systems and technology). There is still an obsession with the 'missile defense' regime (albeit with some cuts to certain applications within that program) and no sign that the U.S. is going to abandon the provocative plan to ring Russia with missile systems.

Moreover, there's an open effort to codify the type of regime-change/ nation-building militarism that Gates and his fellow Bush holdovers have been allowed to formulate into U.S. foreign policy. It's one thing to go ahead and give Gates and Co. what they say they need for the Afghanistan mission, but it's quite another thing to allow the Pentagon to feather their resources to make these types of military overthrows effortless in their expense and preparation.

I'd be satisfied to find that it's untenable for the U.S. to prosecute and maintain the types of occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan that we've been saddled with. I don't want to make it easier. Most of the reasons for the Pentagon and administration re-thinking of their militarism has had to do with the costs and effects on our defensive forces.

The type of warfare Gates and Co. are angling to sell us in their budget is a slippery slope for our military into an offensive posture which is indeed a big change from our defensive posture we've maintained against the potential threat from a rouge state or aggressor nation. There is also a striking disregard for the sovereignty of other nations in the way of our strident advance across their borders, and a curious resignation to fear in the assumptions of the prevalence of military confrontations in the future which would require the same types of anti-democratic military actions.

But, to the point of the op, I wonder what folks here see as the 'big changes' in this increase in defense spending? I've read the articles and opinions of Democrats who are defending the budget against outrageously false claims and complaints. What I'd like to know is what changes individuals have identified in this budget as progressive or worthy of uncritical support?

I'll admit that I'm baffled by the support for this $530 billion defense budget from many Democrats who once excoriated the Bush administration for similar levels of spending. All I see is a host of unnecessary militarism supported by this budget, with a host of dubious justifications for it's need and efficacy. What SPECIFICALLY makes this defense spending (which is hundreds of billions higher than that of our closest adversaries) worthy of Democratic or progressive support?

[mix]

1. it is a colossal waste of people and money

This graph puts our military spending in perspective over the last few years:

[grantcart]

2. The graph seriously understates the problem because it doesn't include

defense related intelligence spending.

[mix]

3. what do you mean? n/t

[grantcart]

5. It does not include NSA, the DIA and the smaller but better known CIA

all of whom are military related but are not included in the military budget. The problem is even larger than your very graphic chart shows.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

8. BINGO CITIZEN

[grantcart]

4. In my opinion a significant part of the increase of the budget is not in increased

activity but simply more honest accounting of actual spending. Most specifically exotic weapon systems that have huge over runs are now being accounted for more accurately. The President isn't doing this simply for intellectual honesty but because he wants political cover by showing that spending is going up even as he is redefining the mission and eliminating useless programs.

The budget does not reflect changes that new policies will allow. A few examples.

Iraq. The budget still supports a major mission in Iraq, in 2 years it will be a small fraction of that.

Nuclear Arms reduction. While not as big as new fighters, the budget does not yet reflect reduction of the nuclear arsenal.

More significant are huge expenditures in the budget that are likely to be eliminated when policy is changed. For example the defense missle shield in Europe is obviously being scrutinized and when diplomatic efforts reduce tensions with Iran, it will be eliminated.

Significant changes in the military budget can only happen as policy changes are adopted and there is a limit to how fast he can get consensus on these.

For me I am extremely grateful that the President has put nuclear disarmament and control of nuclear materials at the top of the list and, without any outside pressure at all, very early in his administration.

Given all of the other crises that the President inherited I think it is a good sign that he has taken these initial steps early in his administration. We will not be able to judge his success until the 3rd and 4th year of the budget. Even more importantly there are some weapon systems that have been developed and are now being rolled out which, if eliminated at the bottom of the 9th inning, would create tremendous political backlash. The real impact will be seen in the outlying years of future administrations when they are not encumbered with the new weapon systems that were not started now.

[bigtree]

6. So,

Iraq occupation needs to end, Iran needs to capitulate, and a nuclear proliferation effort has to result in decreases in our arsenal or weapons production efforts, before we can start to see reductions? That leaves a whole lot of militarism on the table, notwithstanding the built-in expense for the 'long war' in Afghanistan and the foot-dragging in Iraq. You've got a whole heap of optimism as you're whistling your way past the incredibly inflated wish list.

We've assumed the bulk of the military obligation in Afghanistan, and that burden can only be reduced over time by events or by a lessening of military priorities and objectives there.

I see the administration leaning toward 'refurbishment' of their nuclear warheads as a 'compromise' with the hawks who insist that the durability of our arsenal is at risk. The 'replacement' of the warheads would create its own new spending regime.

The future expenses in Iraq are as unknown as whatever the president will use as a guide to determine when enough is enough there.

What I'm hearing from you, grantcart, is a leap of faith in the administration to manage this money to 'success'. I hear your view about the 'on-budget' accounting which would inflate the budget total. I'm not convinced that 'honest accounting' makes up the difference between a rational level of defense spending and the outrageous way our defense spending outmatches that of our closet adversaries. We still have an administration willing to sign on to these hyper-militarized priorities for our tax dollars. All of this is in response to what threat - and from whom?

What I'm still interested in is what specific part of the expenditures do you have faith and confidence in to produce a result that progressives and Democrats should reasonably support. Are you saying the money for the occupations is prudent and correct?

[grantcart]

7. I am only guessing that the current budget is based on more realistic

estimates rather than low balling weapon systems and then having huge over runs - which are by definition never in the budget but still paid for. I am only guessing but it is based on the fact that Obama and Gates appear more financially prudent and intellectually honest than their predecessors.

Today we have a large army in Iraq. We have to budget for it. When that army is no longer in Iraq then they will no longer be in the budget. He has announced that he is intent on removing the combat troops from Iraq and once gone they will no longer be in the budget.

The budget currently, therefore, largely reflects the actual cost of implementing Bush's policies that are now being undone. You have to change the policy first and then the budget.

President Obama is clearly laying the foundation, for example, of ending the missle shield in the Czech Republic and Poland. Until his strategy is worked out then it will still be there on paper.

There is no "leap of faith". Obama has outlined that he not only intends to end the Iraq War, but, as he frequently repeated, he wants to end the 'assumptions and thinking that led us to war".

What is the evidence of this?

He repeatedly announced during the campaign, at considerable political cost, that he is willing to speak to our enemies without preconditions. He has sent a message to the people of Iran, he has announced that he is going to start working on nuclear disarmament.

It doesn't take a "leap of faith" to see Obama's recipe. Engage our enemies diplomatically, reduce the level of tension and initiate the policy changes at the time when they will gain the most political acceptance through the entire country.

Your recipe is to make all of the changes now and antagonize everyone who disagrees with us rather than winning them over. It plays well on the internet, it raises your profile amongst the true believers, but it will not build the legislative numbers needed to actually get the policy in place.

I think that there is an interesting historic parrallel with Lincoln and the abolitionists who rallied against Lincoln at every turn for his slow pace. At every point they expressed their disappointment at his moderation. Fredric Douglas was the most articulate of these. Over time he continued to rail against Lincoln's slow pace even as he became more and more affection of Lincoln personally.

In the end, however, Douglas came to the conclusion that Lincoln was not slow or a moderate. He concluded that Lincoln in fact achieved the maximum degree of change by timing his moves according to the political play at the time. By doing so he may have not appeared as radical as others but what he achieved was more radical than what their "everything now" approach would have.

I commend Douglas' words to you;

. . . he could do nothing without the support of Congress . . I am satisfied now that he is doing all that circumstances will permit him to do.

And so it is with Obama. Even though we are in the middle of the worst economic meltdown in 70 years Obama continues to take time to lay down the ground work that is necessary to reshape the current conflicts that make significant military reduction more difficult. He has already gone beyond his campaign position by dramatically elevating nuclear disarmament and control of nuclear weapons in his Prague speech.

It hasn't even been 100 days and you seem to want to rush to the head of the herd of the progressives who are determined to establish that they were there first in finding the President not progressive and a sell out.

Did you really think he was going to change everything in 100 days?

I find this particularly ironic in that you were such an eloquent advocate of Senator Clinton's Presidential campaign and yet her campaign was much more militaristic in tone and took every effort to bash Senator Obama's stated intent to achieve aggressive negotiation in face to face talks without preconditions.

[bigtree]

10. ha!

So, your reasoning centers on the politically possible. That's a rather subjective and arbitrary standard to measure the needs for change.

The question I asked was whether you could tell me what you support in that budget which you believe progressives and Democrats could reasonably stand behind. Your answer, I believe, is that we should be patient and let the priorities which have been initiated in the last administration fade from political favor before we can expect cuts. In other terms, you are representing the entire budget as supportable because, in your view, the items in the budget are part and parcel of the most supportable policies possible right now.

I think that you should remember that I'm not the one who is representing this budget as a major advance away from the past and as some revolutionary compact for the future. That's the consensus of those who are defending this budget against republican opposition. I just see more presumptive militarism which is justified by the identical set of fearmongering assumptions the last administration made about the inevitability of a 'long war' and the prevalence in the future of the same types of conflicts we've chosen to embroil ourselves in today.

There's an obvious effort to streamline the resources available to match the scope and function of the present military regime. But, my question is, what is in this budget which represents the 'change' that proponents have rhetorically heralded in their praise and defenses?


(*rant moved to your PM)

[grantcart]

11. this budget is still based on the policies of the Bush Presidency

The reason that some commentators were so pleased with it is that they saw Gates moving from exotic expensive weapon systems and providing a more rational use of resources.


Obama is reworking the assumptions of our diplomacy and military from the ground up.

The reduction of international tensions, increased role of diplomacy, fostering a broader feeling of international solidarity are the first steps of a much broader change on how the average American views the military. It will have an impact, if successful, in future years on the budget. It will not happen overnight or in 90 days.

For me I was very happy with his speech in Prague and for his elevating nuclear arms to a central position of rethinking our entire military posture.

I have been waiting 30 years for that speech, so I find criticisms of what he hasn't done in the first 90 days to be rather self indulgent. But the left has always been self indulgent. Senator McGovern was the most self indulgent of them all. Took me a long tmie to understand that fact after working so hard and caring so much. He didn't want to run on a policy to stop the war he wanted to run on every leftist policy that he could, including high inheritance taxes. Made him feel progressive but it didn't help stop the war. So yes, in the end the progressive movement has to be judged on not what it advocates but what it gets the majority of the citizens to accept and through congress.

So the President is not only rolling out a very progressive policy, he is doing it in a way that he can keep 60% of the population with him. Can't be done in 90 days or even a single year.

[bigtree]

15. that may well be true that the budget will evolve

Still, we are not politicians. We can decide, right now, which of these expenditures on weapons and weapons technology are prudent or correct. In this budget, there are items and programs which may well be 'revolutionary' in their scrapping or reduction in funding. What I'm trying to identify are the items or programs which are being continued or established in this budget which proponents feel progressives or Democrats can reasonably support.

If there aren't any, I really don't understand why, we as citizens, should acquiesce to this budget out of the same pragmatism as a politician might display. We can all understand the political pressures Pres. Obama is under. What we shouldn't countenance is reflexive support from those outside of government for such dangerous expenditures of our precious (borrowed) money, for primarily political reasons.

What in this budget reflects the 'rolling out' of progressivism by the president? Where is the money in the budget, for example, for the nuclear initiatives the president alluded to in his speech?

Where are expenditures related to the principles of a 'reduction of international tensions, increased role of diplomacy, (and a) fostering a broader feeling of international solidarity' in the defense budget?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. New boss meet the real bosses in the Pentagon, MIC, and congress.

Substitute smoke and mirrors to mollify the left and avoid facing their wrath.

Perhaps, hopefully, maintaining the status quo won't work because the American people are beginning to see that throwing money at the Pentagon neither keeps us "safe" or is of any benefit to them. And, that an awful lot of money is being wasted that could be put to use that would actually accomplish something worthwhile.

[Pastiche423]

12. Please watch Ben Cohen's (formerly of Ben & Jerry's)

oreo video here: http://www.truemajority.org/oreos/




I taped the oreo demonstration he did on Donohue's sadly short-lived show in 2002.

[KG]

13. nothing.

[Time for change]

14. Maybe Obama has studied JFK's presidency

and learned a lesson from it. You think?