4/9/09

 
Following the release of the defense budget by Secretary Gates, conservatives responded with hysterical claims that the budget slashes defense spending and leaves America dangerously exposed. Both claims are false. The Obama-Gates defense budget increases defense spending by $21 billion over this year’s budget -- an increase larger than the outgoing projections of the Bush administration. Gates has not, on net, cut the budget; what he has done is make hard choices to scale back or eliminate over-budget, ill-conceived and unnecessary weapons programs and reallocate these funds to create a more balanced force that meets the needs of the troops on the ground and the challenges of the 21st century. This is in stark contrast to the Bush administration, which throughout its tenure continuously neglected the war-fighter in favor of costly, ineffective weapons systems, claiming, as Secretary Rumsfeld did, “you go to war with the Army you have.” Yet the Bush Administration failed to deliver proper body armor and sufficiently armored vehicles to the troops on the ground -- even as its high-tech investments in too many cases failed to deliver results.
 
With this budget, Gates has firmly rejected this approach and placed his priority on people, not hardware. The budget laid out by Gates is fighting the wars we are currently in – and may be in for some time.  It moves to meet the needs of the military's greatest asset -- its people – and prepares the military for the challenges it is most likely to confront in a 21st century where our adversaries are as likely to be a stateless band of insurgents as a major nation-state force. Yet conservatives -- with very few exceptions, of whom John McCain is one -- argue that the U.S. instead needs to remain solely focused on developing its conventional forces in preparation of a future modern nation-state adversary that does not yet exist.  They criticize Gates' focus on counterinsurgency and irregular conflict as fighting the “last war” (Iraq and Afghanistan).  In reality, conservatives are fighting the “last war,” namely the Cold War.
 
The Obama administration’s defense budget provides a new strategic direction that will finally bring the Pentagon into the 21st Century.  The Obama administration and Secretary of Defense Gates unveiled a bold new blueprint for the defense budget that makes hard choices on defense programs, brings discipline to the mismanaged procurement process, prioritizes people over hardware, and invests in building a more balanced force to handle the tangible challenges we are facing now and are likely to face in the future. The Washington Post writes that “Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates outlined sweeping changes to the defense budget Monday that would shift billions of dollars in Pentagon spending away from elaborate weapons toward programs more likely to benefit troops in today's wars... The proposal by Gates amounts to a radical change in the way the Pentagon buys weapons. For decades, the United States has spent trillions of dollars on weapons programs that strove for revolutionary leaps but often were delivered years late and billions of dollars over budget.”  Former OMB official Gordon Adams praised Gates for having the wherewithal to make tough choices about defense spending, saying “[d]iscipline in the defense budget process has been missing for eight years and the announcement from Sec. Gates will go a long way in helping to restore it.” According to the New York Times, Gates’ budget prioritizes people over platforms, by including “plans to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps, while halting reductions in Air Force and Navy personnel.”  The Times also highlighted Gates’ shift to fighting the irregular wars of the present and future by shifting “an extra $2 billion for intelligence and surveillance equipment, including new Predator and Reaper drones,” as well as “more spending on special forces and training foreign military units.”  As Gates noted, "I'm just trying to get the irregular guys to have a seat at the table and to institutionalize some of the needs they have." [Washington Post, 4/07/09. Secretary Gates, 4/6/09. Gordon Adams, 4/07/09. NY Times, 4/07/09]
 
Hysterical conservative reactions to Defense budget distort truth.  Conservatives have already attacked Gates’ defense budget proposal, misrepresenting it as a cut, when in fact the budget is a $21 billion increase. Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute wrote in USA Today that “The Obama budgets plot a Titanic-like course. We just don't know which iceberg will be fatal... President Obama wants to help finance his expansive and expensive domestic program by cutting military spending.” Rep. John McHugh, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, trotted out a similar distortion, saying “[i]f implemented, this proposal will be tantamount to an $8 billion cut in defense spending.”  And Fox News characterized Gates’ proposal as “broad cuts in Pentagon spending.” But, as Talking Points Memo’s Brian Beutler observes, conservative reactions mislead and distort.   Beutler writes: “the numbers tell a different story: Not counting supplementals, Congress last year appropriated $513 billion to the Pentagon. This year, Gates is asking for $534 billion. If he gets everything he asks for, that's an increase of $21 billion, and Congress could always increase the total beyond that.”  Beutler also notes that this dishonest representation has migrated to the mainstream media, including a Time headline which on Monday read, “Gates takes knife to defense budget.” [Tom Donnelly, 4/8/09. Rep. John McHugh (R – NY), 4/06/09. Fox News, 4/07/09. Talking Points Memo, 4/07/09]
 
Conservatives are the ones fighting the “last war,” while the budget addresses America’s current and likely future challenges.  Many conservatives have been critical of the defense budget proposed by Secretary Gates. Kori Schake, a former McCain campaign advisor, for example, said “Gates's emphasis on institutionalizing counterinsurgency sounds remarkably like fighting the last war, and too little effort has been directed toward redressing those vulnerabilities in U.S. military power most likely to produce losses in future wars.” Secretary Gates responded to these attacks, “Some will say I am too focused on the wars we are in and not enough on future threats. The allocation of dollars in this budget definitively belies that claim. But it is important to remember that every Defense dollar spent to over insure against a remote or diminishing risk or, in effect, to run up the score in capability where the United States is already dominant is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in, and improve capabilities in areas where we are underinvested and potentially vulnerable. That is a risk I will not take.” Conservatives insist that the overriding need is to develop conventional forces to fight an enemy that closely resembles the Soviet Union of the Cold War. The conservative Heritage Foundation  insists that “The misplaced yet growing conventional wisdom around Washington is that because the future of conflict will mirror our present irregular engagements, there is less of a need to invest in expensive conventional military platforms that the military will likely not ‘need to succeed on their missions.’” But these criticisms do not even address the pressing need to reform military procurement, or even the challenges our troops currently face in the field. As a New York Times editorial said, “At his news conference on Monday, Mr. Gates vowed to end programs that significantly exceed their budgets or use limited tax dollars to buy ‘more capability than the nation needs.’ If ever there was a weapon that met these criteria, it is the F-22. It was designed for combat against the former Soviet Union and has not been used in the wars this country is actually fighting.” Senator John McCain, acknowledging the need for reform, supports the budget saying, “It has long been necessary to shift spending away from weapon systems plagued by scheduling and cost overruns to ones that strike the correct balance between the needs of our deployed forces and the requirements for meeting the emerging threats of tomorrow.” [Kori Schake, 4/4/09. Robert Gates, 4/6/09. Heritage Foundation, 4/1/09. NY Times, 4/7/09. John McCain, 4/6/09]
 
 

What We’re Reading

Richard Holbrooke went to India and met with leaders to discuss the “common threat” of extremism in Pakistan.
 
Somali pirates hold hostage the American captain of a U.S.-flagged ship which was hijacked and later re-taken by the crew yesterday.
 
Britain’s top counter-terrorism official resigned after being photographed holding secret documents.
 
The U.S. will join talks with Iran and other nations on Tehran’s nuclear program.
 
Widespread corruption undercuts U.S. hopes for the Afghan National Police.
 
President Obama plans to take on immigration reform this year, despite political risks.
 
Kim Jong-Il won re-election and made his first public appearance since his suspected stroke over the summer.
 
Extremist websites use U.S. hosts for ease and anonymity.
 
Six investigators conducing checks for security clearances were accused of falsifying information.
 
Indonesia goes to the polls today for a complex parliamentary election that is “one of democracy’s greatest celebrations.”
 
The President of the Maldives says he will open the country’s state-run media.
 

Commentary of the Day

The New York Times discusses the Red Cross report on U.S. treatment of detainees and calls for an investigation particularly of medical professionals involved.
 
Roger Cohen says that the U.S. should treat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments on Iran with “appropriate skepticism” and focus on opening relations with Iran.
 
Lawrence Freedman examines the challenges of transitioning to a world without nuclear weapons.
 
The LA Times debates whether Bush administration torture memo-author John Yoo should be teaching at Chapman University Law School.  Chapman dean John C. Eastman says yes, Chapman professor Lawrence Rosenthal says no.