The provision of an adequate defense budget for America’s diminished armed forces in the face of rapidly growing international threats has been held hostage to political issues including immigration, increased domestic programs, and spending caps. It is a dangerous act, the governmental equivalent of a family refusing to fix a collapsed roof in their home until they can also afford a new big-screen television.
The current flashpoint is the tactic by Senator Schumer (Dem-NY) and Rep. Pelosi (D-Ca.) to withhold necessary defense spending unless Republicans surrender on immigration issues.
it’s not the first time this tact has been taken. In the past few years, the Obama Administration withheld urgently needed budgetary support for the armed services unless Congress authorized increases in domestic spending, despite the former president’s increase of over 40% in some entitlement programs, his $780 billion stimulus program, and other costly (and, some would argue, unsuccessful) domestic initiatives.
In 2016, the Washington Examiner reported, after Democrats had blocked a defense spending bill for the third time, that “The Obama administration reportedly put together a five-page memo about blocking increases for the Pentagon unless they are accompanied by increases on other programs…It is one thing to insist on fiscal probity within the Pentagon, quite another to prevent proper national defense until the majority party caves in and allows further federal overspending on domestic programs.”
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There is a profound difference between the pragmatic worldview of those seeking to provide necessary funds for the Pentagon, and those who view defense as just one more Washington program. The Hill reported that “Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said he opposes the administration’s push to expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal because ‘we can’t afford it.’… the congressman argued for ‘a national security strategy that realistically reflects the amount of money that we’re going to have.’”
Rep. Smith’s position fails to pass a logic test. The world of threats facing America will not respond to Washington’s internecine debates. The threats are real, not political. Further, it was proven quite rigorously during the Obama Administration that when the U.S. reduces the strength of its military or its military commitments, military dangers increase.
The latest pushback on this extraordinarily hazardous practice came from Speaker Paul Ryan, in a January address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies :
“…the federal government has a lot of responsibilities, but its first and its foremost responsibility is our national defense… We have to be clear-eyed in laying out for the American people why so much is at stake. Rebuilding our military is essential to confronting the threats we face, threats that are evolving at an alarmingly rapid pace. North Korea is working to build ballistic missiles capable of hitting the continental United States. Iran is marching forward with its quest for regional hegemony by backing terrorism across the globe. And what is left of ISIS is trying to figure out how to expand and influence terrorism in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, and into the West, including by inspiring attacks right here at home…Then there are those countries that want to remake the world order in their authoritarian image…Russia is trying to drive holes through NATO, while threatening some of our closest allies in Eastern Europe; while the Chinese aggression continues to stir instability in the South China Sea. And these threats are particularly serious, because allowing Russia and China to upend the post-Cold War order first and foremost affects us right here at home… We have simply pushed our military past the breaking point. Instead of upgrading our hardware, we have let our equipment age. Instead of equipping our troops for tomorrow’s fight, we have let them become woefully underequipped. Funding for modernizing the Army has been cut in half in the past eight years. Navy sailors are putting in 100-hour work weeks, and less than half of their aircraft are capable of flying. So we’re pushing our sailors to 100-hour work weeks and half of their planes can fly. Roughly 80 percent of the Marine Corps aviation units lack the minimum number of ready basic aircraft. The Air Force is the smallest size in our nation’s history, and the average age of their aircraft is 27 years old. The cost of these readiness deficiencies are really dire, and this is literally costing us lives. Here’s the statistic that gets me the most. In total, we lost 80 lives due to training accidents in 2017 alone. That is four times as many were killed in combat. Four times were lost last year in training accidents versus combat…”
The Report Concludes Tomorrow