Inertia in Government and Military Spending
By Dan Tow • Jan 12th, 2009 • Category: Politics, Worth A Second Look • 22 CommentsOver a year ago, in Habit’s Impact on Freedom, I discussed ways that habit and custom constrain our freedom, sometimes harmfully, and sometimes in constructive ways, but generally in ways that are independent of governments. Today, I would like to discuss in particular how habit tends to constrain governments, especially regarding the size of military budgets.
Consider the two largest areas in the US government budget: support for the elderly, as Social Security payments and Medicare (government-provided health care to the elderly), and military spending.
For decades, now, the US government has provided a sort of contract to its population: Pay taxes specifically for Social Security and Medicare, during your working years, and the government will provide you a basic (minimal) income with Social Security payments, and basic health-care coverage, during your old age. For the poor, these guarantees are the primary means of support in retirement, the only thing keeping them alive and off the streets. For those with better savings and independent retirement plans, this government help is just part of their support in retirement, but even the relatively rich expect this support to come through, and plan accordingly. With these programs well-established, there is good reason to make changes only very slowly, to avoid breaking a promise made that the taxpayers have a right to insist should be fulfilled – if they have paid into the system faithfully for years, they should have a right to get something fair in return when their turn to retire comes. Inertia, here, the tendency for these systems to change slowly, and for their costs to be “non-discretionary,” is sensible. Even if we concluded, in the US, that the whole system was a mistake, and ought to be eliminated, even the most anti-government politicians would generally agree that this should be phased out very gradually, so as not to starve people too old to make new plans for their own support, who were promised support, and who paid faithfully for that support with decades of their own tax payments before their retirement.
US non-war military spending is theoretically much more flexible, and yet in practice it is about as predictable, over the decades, as spending for Social Security. Each year, the debate over the military budget tends to be something like a debate between “hawks,” who want perhaps an 8% increase in military spending (a small increase, after inflation), and “doves,” who argue for a 4% increase (roughly matching inflation), with both sides anticipating continued similar increases for decades to come. Of course, if a war comes up, there are temporary spikes on top of the base spending, and these can be very large, but I am speaking here of the spending not tied to any ongoing war. It is almost unheard-of to consider a large decrease in the military, even over the long run, even though our military is much more powerful than any other on Earth. How is it so automatic that the politicians assume the military is roughly the size it should be, rarely even considering whether it might serve its purpose just fine at half its current size, or even less, perhaps much less?
I would submit that this tendency to overspend on one’s military is not restricted to the US, though the US may be a top example, and in all cases, I think the problem boils down to habit and inertia from governments. Consider the USSR during the cold war. Many in the US feared actual invasion by the USSR against the US – there were even television shows based on such stories. Yet, late in the cold war, the USSR, a superpower, found itself humbled and economically broken by the costs of occupying Afghanistan, which was surely 100-fold less difficult to occupy than the US would have been. More recently, with much deeper economic resources, and a stronger military than the USSR ever had, the US has found its own outer limit of military challenge in, barely, painfully, occupying Iraq. Decades, even centuries ago, aggressive military adventures tended to end up with both sides worse off than before the adventure. Occasionally, though, there was a brutal sort of profit in aggressive war, if the aggressor cared nothing for suffering inflicted. This tendency, over the centuries, taught governments that large, powerful militaries might be useful for conquest or at least necessary for defense against other aggressors. When was the last time this lesson held true, though? By sheer brutality and ruthlessness, Hitler came all too close to success against unprepared, undermilitarized opponents, before ultimate defeat. If the Allies had been better armed before that war, the war might have been prevented and it would surely have been shorter and less bloody. In the over 60 years since World War II, however, aggressive war has been a miserably profitless business, and no power of significance has been invaded, and even minor powers have avoided or thrown off conquest from much stronger opponents. This is true, today, and I expect it will remain true for all our lifetimes.
Some in the US would argue that our large military kept the USSR out of major wars of conquest, that our military served a valid and cost-effective purpose in that way. (If a major war was prevented, this was a huge benefit, even if, as is likely, the USSR would have lost that war, in the end!) Since we cannot rewind history and see the result of a much smaller US military, we can never know the answer to this hypothetical question. Today, however, among those countries that spend a large fraction of their economic wealth on their military, who really needs the protection this affords? Who has any realistic potential to gain through aggressive military action, today? (Iraq has proven that the US will never gain through invasion – the cost far exceeds any benefit!) Who is truly in danger of invasion, with the potential to manage that danger through a larger military?
Here in the Pakspectator, I have seen concern expressed about the possibility of US military invasion and occupation of Pakistan. As you know, there have already been targeted attacks within your borders, where the US military was attempting to reach terrorists on Pakistani soil. (I believe that it surely true that the US military believed they were attacking terrorists, whether this was actually true or not – a pointless, deliberate attack on innocent civilians in a country whose help we badly need would be obviously foolish and against any US interests, even to the most callous and brutal US planner!) I surely understand how alarming and upsetting these attacks are to Pakistani citizens, and I am not trying to defend them here. Consider, though: could a stronger Pakistani military prevent these targeted attacks? As for an actual US invasion, there are really two phases to consider: First, in the invasion, itself, I would submit that the much-weaker military, if the two forces are not roughly equal, will lose. The only effect of strengthening the much-weaker military, today, would be to increase the number of deaths suffered on both sides, during the invasion. Paradoxically, these added casualties during the invasion are likely only to make the invaders less likely to leave, soon, since their soldiers would then have “died in vain”! Second, in the occupation, following the invasion, the military of the invaded country no longer matters! What matters then is the size of the population of the invaded country, and the determination of any fraction of that population to resist the invasion. Here, the US in Iraq, and the USSR in Afghanistan proved that even the biggest, strongest militaries today face a hopeless problem in occupying even much smaller countries. Pakistan, in my opinion, is much too large to be successfully occupied by any nation on Earth, today, at a price that any nation is willing to pay. (You might agree with this sentiment, and yet still feel that you are in danger from a country with leadership too foolish to recognize this fact – feel free to comment, if this is what you believe.) For all its foolishness, the administration of George W. Bush surely knows that the US, already stretched to the breaking point by the occupation of Iraq, could not afford an occupation of Pakistan, and I believe the much wiser coming administration of Barack Obama would not dream of a new invasion, anywhere, even if our current economic difficulties did not make such an adventure even more obviously foolish.
Now, if a strong military is not really needed, what does it cost? Of course, there is the obvious economic cost – enormous resources spent on economically useless tanks, etc., money that could be vastly more productively spent on education, roads, health care, and other productive investments in the future of the economy. Even if you believe that long-term military strength is the ultimate good (for your own country), as some in the US appear to believe, too much military today may bankrupt the country, resulting in a much smaller, weaker military in 20 years! The costs of too much military are much more than just economic, though: A large military is much more likely to get into mischief than a small one, with useless external adventures and with power-grabbing, undemocratic acts against its own proper government, and against the citizens of its own nation! A leader with an oversized military is much less compelled to creatively negotiate a fair and lasting solution to a problem than a leader denied that “big stick.” I would submit that oversized militaries have much more often been the cause of trouble, destroying their own nation’s power and influence and democratic government, than they have been the savior of their nations, and this is even more true, today, than ever.
For your comments: Do you agree that military aggression is not just wrong, but is simply unprofitable, even to an amoral aggressor, in today’s world? Given this, is military defense still a reason for a large military, in your country, perhaps because you believe that you have a potential enemy that has not figured out that aggression against you would be pointless and disastrous in every respect? Even if that strong military would be useful, is it worth the costs and the risks it creates? If your military is oversized, as I believe the US military to be, how much smaller could it be and still be big enough? If other militaries also shrank sensibly, how much further could your own military shrink and still meet the nation’s needs? As for the US military, I specifically ask my readers outside the US: How much smaller would you like our US military to be? (If you see us as entirely destructive, I assume the answer would be “zero US military,” but I think at least some readers may have ambivalent feelings about the US military – yes, it causes trouble, but it may also act as a deterrent against trouble that other nations might cause if there was no US superpower (surely, few today would wish that Germany had won World War II, and an unrestrained USSR might have caused enormous mischief, so, at least, I think, the past large size of the US military was somewhat useful to the world as a whole) – the fact that wars of conquest are no longer profitable, today, might arguably change if there were no US superpower to offer defensive aid to nations aggressively invaded by ruthless neighbors, or, especially, if there were a new, completely undemocratic superpower (in place of the US) that (like the Nazis) was completely unconcerned with maintaining even any appearance of morality with its own population reasonably informed by a free press.
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Hi Dan,
During cold war, the Missile gap,bomber gap etc are created by your Military Industrial complex to fatten its profits. Your first gulf war with Saddma produced a profit of 17 Billion US dollars for you. Today your nation has swallowed the Iraq oil wealth. Ofcourse it is learning that 9/11 could not be prevented by your military.But it is spending on Reliable new Warhead for its nukes which any man with common sense will know is useless.
But predator attacks are necessary because as per your NIE the next attack on your mainland USA will come or will be planned from North Wazirstan/FATA area of Pakistan. The top Uzbek,Arab,Yemeni guys getting killed by your drones shows that Musharaff was actually fooling you guys.The civilians getting killed are actually the Pakistani wives and children of these guys.
Your nation has learnt the lesson of vietnam and you are not going to occupy and hold land in asia but will fight with your drones .Pakistani leadership knows the truth and just making noises for its public consumption.
Hi Johann,
From the First Gulf War17 billion dolllars profit for *who*? Not me. Not the US, either. US war costs are huge. Even the obvious costs are huge, but the indirect costs (such as military retirement and disability costs) are also enormous, so even if the US was paid enough by the surrounding gulf states to offset the direct costs and leave a 17-billion-dollar profit, I assure you that the indirect costs more than consumed that “profit”! I’m not claiming that the motivations behind our leadership were noble and pure, just that war is bad business, *whatever you think of its morality* and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding himself about the true costs. As for “swallowing Iraq oil wealth,” I don’t know where you get that. Just look at our economy, and the price of oil paid by the US to all (driven up by war), including to Iraq, leading up to our current wealth, that helped accelerate our path into our current mess, and look at the ballooning US government deficits - no evidence of any US profit, there! Please understand, I’m not *defending* the war - it was stupid and immoral and harmful to *all* the nations involved. Individuals connected with various industries, including the military-industrial complex, *have* profited, surely, and I don’t doubt that they have lobbied for their interests, accordingly, but I surely do not see a profit for the US as a whole, as much as Bush might have (mis)calculated that there would be such a profit!
I’m having trouble correcting that last comment - sorry for my haste: In the middle, it should read “leading up to our current *mess*” not “leading up to our current wealth,” of course!
Dan,
If you are feeling that the US military is over sized, and needs to be reduced, then why is the military spending so high. Also why are you saying that Pakistan is important for the, can you justify that. Pakistan has been paid by the US for this war on terror.
Here also you are paying from your taxpayers pocket. Why to put more burden on tax payer?
If you think that Pakistan is important and so does your govt. then they can and / or should talk to Pakistan on this matter rather than paying them to fight for and with you. I guess importance of Pakistan will be till the Afghanistan war is on, after that it will not bother US much with what happens to Pakistan or so.
Also this whole mess that you are talking about is created by US to put USSR out of central Asia and not let it capture Afghanistan. This has created problems for the whole world.
How do you think is US going to handle this?
Adi,
Why is US military spending so high? My title sums up my answer - inertia. From times when aggressive use of the military to invade and occupy other countries appeared to be at least occasionally profitable, nations developed a habit of building large militaries, either to use aggressively, or to use to defend themselves against others intent on aggressive expansion. As recently as World War II, the US truly needed a large military, and in the Cold War that followed, there was at least a good argument for a large US military to counter the USSR. Since, then, I think, it’s just inertia, unreasoning fear, and successful lobbying by the specific industries that benefit.
Pakistan’s importance to the US and to the world is clear, I think, and is not simply dependent on Afghanistan, though that matters. Pakistan is the only Islamic nuclear power. It is nearly the largest Islamic nation, in population, and is the largest in the immediate neighborhood of the Middle East. Pakistan and India are the poorest nuclear powers, per-capita (with the potential for government instability that tends to come with the desperation of poverty), and the only nuclear powers that have recently been at war with each other, which arguably, tragically, makes your two countries the most likely flashpoint for nuclear war, a result that would be an utter, tragic disaster for you both, and for the world. With all its power, and all its military strength, Pakistan appears to be balanced on a knife’s edge, politically, with the potential, with good or bad “help,” from outside, to veer in *either* a much more positive direction of expanded freedom, prosperity, and stable government agreeable to its people, or a much more negative one. Any American politician who doesn’t see the lasting importance of Pakistan to the future of the world is a fool.
I agree that many (though not all) of the US’s problems in your part of the world are self-created by poorly chosen past US actions and policies - I hope we learn to do better. As for predicting coming US government actions, under Obama, I am a great admirer of Obama’s intelligence and good sense, so whatever those actions will be, I hope they will be the best possible among the very difficult and controversial options available, under the very difficult contraints he faces, but I cannot predict what those actions will be, except to predict, as I already did in the article, that he would not be such a fool as to attempt to invade and occupy another country, and that Obama will do his best, as he understands the problems, to handle the past mistakes with minimal further damage.
Well Mr. Tow, your article is right out from the Obama campaign’s manifesto. You might have read Sun Tzu’s The art of war. You win battles by gaining territory, you win wars by gaining the hearts and minds of the people. Sun Tzu went into great detail about combining military might with diplomacy and that the two must be integral for anything lasting to be accomplished.
War, War, War ….. Fear , Fear , Fear…. just a cookie cutter version of US policies. Dan Tow, except Brig. Junaid, you have behind you some Indians in the comments
They don’t like when US says Pakistan is important.
Farrukh Saleem,
You fail to see the irony when “US says Pakistan is important”.
Dan,
Just one point to clarify when you say Pakistan being important because of its nuke and all, then it is not the importance that US is looking at. It is worrying whether the nuke falls in the wrong hands or not, and how to safe guard them.
Also the points on Obama administration, I accept them as he is a person like to use diplomatic measures more than military.
Also you have said about the balancing act of Pakistani govt. what made you say that? Also the lasting importance emphasized at the end, says the same thing about worry and tension. Is the question of who controls the nukes in Pakistan is the real thing that gives nightmares to US administration.
Your views awaited.
Farrukh Saleem,
It is not something like Indians don’t like US behind Pakistan, the point that Indians fear is US support Pakistan, China is Pakistan’s all time friend, then in case of anything happens and Pakistan and India go to war, how should India deal with US and Chinese presence?
As people in Pakistan are creating hype of India opening consulates along Afghan-Pakistan border, thinking that India is crunching you from both sides, same thought process runs in mind of people in India.
Dan, please ignore my mistakes on punctuation and grammar.
Dan,
One question in my earlier comment is not answered. Why US has to pay to Pakistan to fight war against terror? The money US is paying to Pakistan is also a burden to tax payers in US, why should they bear that burden?
I guess the amount was something like $10 Billion, as the news reports. This is a big amount and can be used for other things in US for the people. I am not sure of situation of people in US as I have not visited the country and don’t have many friends over there.
Regarding the “importance” that one country (like the US) attaches to another country (like Pakistan). I have friends in Pakistan, and I admire the free speech and active interest in politics that I read on Pakspectator, so I can have personal, positive feelings toward Pakistan in general, but this is *not* what I am talking about when I speak of “importance” between nations. The key, I think, is not to think of a nation as if it was a single, really big person, with feelings and morals. It is a vast collection of people, and, in almost all cases, the *feelings* of those people toward another country are at best *neutral* (with good feelings from some canceling out bad feelings from others), and the “attitude” of the nation as a whole is dominated simply by the perceived *self* interest of that nation. (The relationship between the US and Great Britain is perhaps an *exception* to this rule, as something close to genuine friendship seems to apply, there, as evidenced for example by Britain following the US into war with Iraq, probably *against* its own self-interest and better judgement!) If we assume that “importance” between nations in general is driven by self-interest, there are two factors that affect importance of a nation to the US:
-How much good or harm can this country do the US, depending on its actions, and
-How much attention and action from the US is needed to *affect* the actions that this other nation will do to the US?
I submit that a nation that can have a big effect on the US, where serious US attention is required to cost-effectively influence that big effect for the better, is judged “important to the US.” Canada, as a very big trade partner and a country with a long shared border, has a very big effect on the US, but it does not get much attention from the US government because our relationship with Canada is very stable, and Canada, itself, is very stable, so it requires very little attention to maintain the current, positive relationship. The “unimportance” of Canada to the US is not a moral judgement, or a reflection of Americans’ feelings toward Canada (which are certainly positive), just a practical estimate of how much US government attention Canada needs to preserve US interests.
The American economy depends on ready access to foreign oil (something Obama will work very hard to change, but this change will take at least a decade!). This makes all nations, especially Islamic nations, around the Middle East “important,” for their potential impact on American access to that oil. This isn’t a moral judgement, just practical self-interest.
Rightly or wrongly Americans as a whole see a large potential that terrorists can do them personal harm - Americans are afraid of losing their economic well-being and even their lives through the effects of terrorism. (If we could be certain that future terrorist attacks were never worse than 9/11, and that they remained as infrequent as they have been so far, you could argue that our response to our fear is out of proportion to the size of the actual danger, but there is no assurance that future terrorist attacks could not harm far more than the attack of 9/11, and could not become much more frequent, utterly disrupting the US way of life and placing all Americans in serious personal danger, so the fear is understandable, I think, even while I regret the fear because I know that the fear is exactly what the terrorists desire.) This fear makes nations that might house terrorists “important” to the US. This fear makes any nation that might potentially supply nuclear materials or expertise to terrorists “important” to the US. (This is true even if the *government* of that nation is entirely friendly to the US, if individuals within that nation might act against government wishes, or if that government might lose control in a future civil war or a coup.)
Apart from risks connected with terrorism (and much more importantly, I personally think), nuclear arms in a nation that may find itself at war with a nuclear neighbor are an enormous risk to the entire world, as a local nuclear war might spread to a global nuclear war, and even a localized nuclear conflict would not only kill millions, tragically, within those nations, but it could cause havoc (called “nuclear autumn” by the scientists) to the global environment, affecting *all* nations, potentially leading to the starvation of billions around the globe.
All the above argues for a large potential effect from Pakistan on the US (and the world), but I should also address my statement that Pakistan is on a razor’s edge - that with just a little help it might go in a very postive direction or (with the wrong kind of “help”) in a very negative direction: From my personal interractions with Pakistanis, and from my interractions through Pakspectator, I have a personal impression that the intelligentsia (at the very least) in Pakistan is very open-minded and curious, and eager to move in a very positive direction of increased freedom, stable democracy, and broad education. I also read of great internal conflict that makes it very difficult for that intellientsia to achieve its goals and puts the future of Pakistan at risk, conflicts that the US (among others!) has sometimes foolishly added fuel to, unfortunately, rather than helping as it should. It is really just a personal judgement (though one shared by many in the US press) that relatively little effort (*well chosen* effort!) from the US could help Pakistan advance enormously, and that in helping Pakistan fulfill its own best interests, the same interests shared by most of the readers of Pakspectator, I believe, the US could do *itself* enormous good, as well. (In business, this is called a “win-win” - an easy-to-sell idea that benefits both sides, if only both sides can be made to understand the mutual benefit promised.)
Regarding relations between countries being driven primarily by self-interest, I have one more point I just thought of: I cited the relation between US and Britain as a counter-example, a case where genuine friendship occasionally seems to override self-interest. I wonder whether the relationship between Pakistan and India might be another exception in the *other* direction, where *negative* feelings sometimes override self-interest? It strikes me that if negative feelings could be put aside, the genuine self-interests of India and Pakistan might lead to far more cooperation than currently exists, perhaps? I don’t pretend to understand the relationship as well as you must in Pakistan and India, so I put forward this thought in all humility, and feel free to correct me if you think I’m speaking nonsense.
I like to tell you that Pakistani families that worked and are working in United States are a big benefit in foriegn exchange to the nation and thier children return with good education too . The US Foriegn Office has maintained a generous visa policy for tourists businessmen and students .Apartly Pakistan has political families that supported or covertly helped western policy inside Pakistan as Washington pulled the world out of the political economic division until today again Pakistan is amongst prosperous nations in many ways and we need’nt discuss poverty because now it can be termed as self imposed. Through these years with pres Musharaff in charge his government has stopped chanting povrty although it’s development has gotten more dependent on foreign expertise and engineering.
Pakistan has strong democratic traditions. True democracy has yet to take to take root there. Several military coups have made that impossible. Every country is important to the world. Everything, even a stone is imp to world. Indian commentors must hold their venom for some plausible thing.
I am always happy to see your wise input, Dr. Ayesha. You are, of course, perfectly correct that moral importance should be denied no nation, nor any human, nor any thinking, feeling being, and even the non-thinking parts of the world are a vital part of the environment sustains us all. When I speak of “importance” between nations, I speak not of a moral judgement, just of a practical judgement of which nations other nations’ leaders are likely to spare the most attention, for purely practical and (unfortunately) mainly self-interested reasons.
Dan,
I am from India, people in India do think that the problem of terrorism that we are facing have roots in Pakistan and there have been in video footage from news reporters from various channels.
The hate or sympathy feeling, am not sure which one is more right, for Pakistan is only for the fact that even thought the govt. in have for some time now changed its stance towards from hate to friendship. Examples of these are the bus service, train service, trade in the Kashmir valley, talks with the diplomats on resolving of the issues between the two countries, but there are some characters in Pakistan, who don’t like this progress and change in position from India.
But the question still remains, Why US has to pay to Pakistan to fight war against terror? The money US is paying to Pakistan is also a burden to tax payers in US, why should they bear that burden?
Also what Dr. Ayesha said about the democracy in Pakistan, I do agree to her point. But the question is are the people in Pakistan taking any steps towards democracy?
People in Pakistan, as per the information that I am getting from this blogspot, are still not opening their eyes to what their army and govt. is doing. They are still being ruled by the people who like to break them rule them on basis of their state or province.
India has many states than Pakistan, but still barring a few, progress that is made has impacted life of all the people in India, directly or indirectly.
Doc, I am not much aware about what is the state of people in Pakistan, in political terms as I have started taking interest in these thing recently. I don’t have political ambitions but surely will support people who will like to take both the neighbors on the path of progress and peace.
Adi,
I’m not sure I understand your question about saving US taxpayer costs by no longer funding Pakistan’s fight against terrorism? If the money is being mis-spent, so that it is not in fact helping to combat terrorism, then, OK, we should have a discussion specifically about how and why you believe that it fails to help, and how the money might be better spent to do more good per dollar spent. If it is being spent to combat terrorism, but the way terrorism is being fought harms more innocent persons than the terrorists would, or at least more innocent persons than necessary, we should discuss how terrorism might be fought without doing more harm than good. If, on the other hand, it actually helps, and saves lives and suffering, then isn’t it a good thing to spend this money, and if not, why not?
(I do not doubt, by the way, that the money *can* be better spent, and that the fight against terrorism *can* be done in such a way as to harm far fewer innocents, and I have high hopes that the US will do a better (though never perfect - human beings are involved, after all!) job of this under Obama! I would still be happy to see your specific thoughts how we might do better, though.)
The tone of your note sounds like you are simply saying that Pakistan’s internal terrorism just isn’t the US’s problem, but I would strongly disagree - for the reasons I already outlined, *anything* that hurts Pakistan has enormous potential to lead to very serious difficulties to the US, even if we were so uncaring as to be blind to foreign suffering as something to prevent for its own sake, regardless of whether it harms the US.