Cuts to Cheer About
by David Atkins
I’m sort of surprised that the planned Pentagon budget cuts haven’t gotten more attention in progressive circles. There are some things to dislike, but a great deal to like as well.
On the positive side, the cuts are designed to move away from large-scale ground invasion capabilities in the model of Iraq and Afghanistan, and more toward nimbler operations like the one that killed Osama Bin Laden. By cutting those capacities, the Pentagon and the Obama Administration are making it much harder for a future Republican president to attempt an Iraq-style ground war in Iran, which was perhaps the greatest fear progressives like myself had about a potential McCain Administration. The war machine will also have to make do with a few fewer shiny toys, which is a good thing:
Next year’s Pentagon budget is to be $525 billion, down from $531 billion this fiscal year. Even though the Defense Department has been called on to find $259 billion in cuts in the next five years — and $487 billion over the decade — its base budget (not counting the costs of Afghanistan or other wars) will rise to $567 billion by 2017. But when adjusted for inflation, the increases are small enough that they will amount to a slight cut of 1.6 percent of the Pentagon’s base budget over the next five years.
Nonetheless, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said he was working with about $500 billion less than he had anticipated having on hand through 2017, meaning that the Pentagon had to trim personnel and favorite high-profile weapons programs. “This has been tough work,” Mr. Panetta said at an hourlong news conference.
He said that the Army would be reduced over five years to 490,000 troops, down from a peak of 570,000, and that the Marines would be cut to 182,000, down from 202,000. (Ground forces would still be slightly larger than they were before 9/11.) The Pentagon initially will buy fewer F-35 Joint Strike Fighter stealth jets, which are not expected to be in service until at least 2017 and have the distinction of being one of the costliest weapons programs in history. In the Navy, 14 warships will be either retired early or built more slowly.
On the negative side, the cuts come at the expense of troop pay and retiree health benefits:
The Pentagon took the first major step toward shrinking its budget after a decade of war as it announced Thursday that it wanted to limit pay raises for troops, increase health insurance fees for military retirees and close bases in the United States.
Although the pay-raise limits were described as modest, and would not start until 2015, they are certain to ignite a political fight in Congress, which since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has almost always raised military salaries beyond what the Pentagon has recommended.
Increasing health insurance fees for retirees and closing bases are also fraught with political risk, particularly when Republican presidential candidates are charging that President Obama is debilitating the military.
That matters in areas with military bases, which provide a major stimulus boost to local economies. The Ventura County Star is already freaking out about potential local base closures here, and legislators as far apart as hardcore conservative Elton Gallegly and good progressive Lois Capps are united in attempting to prevent the base closures. Local Republican Buck McKeon, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, is on the drumbeat nationally. Politically, the proposed cuts make the job of electing Democrats in these difficult areas even harder, particularly in an environment where the eventual Republican nominee will be demagoguing the issue as much as he can. That is why Democrats like Carl Levin are opposing the closures of any domestic bases, preferring instead to focus on the no-brainer goal of bringing troops home from bases where hostile activity is less credibly expected:
There were already objections on Thursday morning, hours before Mr. Panetta made his public presentation. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters that until the United States shut down some of its bases in Europe, “I’m not going to be able to support” closing bases in America.
Mr. Panetta has said that two armored Army brigades — as many as 10,000 troops — would come home from Europe over the next decade, leaving two brigades and some support troops behind.
All of which goes to underscore how important peacetime government stimulus is. The military-industrial complex is a huge source of government jobs. If progressives want to successfully make a dent in it, there will need to be credible “swords to ploughshares” programs to make up for the jobs that are lost.
Overall, however, the cuts are a positive development in shrinking the bloated defense budget, as well as moving away structurally from military operations designed to conduct long-term occupations in foreign lands, in a way that will tie the hands of Administrations to follow. That’s something to cheer about.
.