Tag Archives: Military spending

The Pentagon Has Too Many Generals

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged , ,

Benjamin Freeman, “The Pentagon Has Too Many Generals,” U.S.News & World Report, July 24 2013

Over the past 10 years, as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan raged, the U.S. military’s enlisted ranks shrank, while the officer corps – particularly the general and flag officer ranks – and the bureaucracy supporting these top commanders, grew immensely.

Earlier this month Third Way released a report on this trend, reaching a disquieting conclusion – the U.S. military is more top-heavy than it has ever been. While I, and others, have documented this trend before, it’s only gotten worse. The U.S. military now has an officer-to-enlisted personnel ratio that’s at an all-time high; this imbalance will only worsen with the recent announcement of further reductions to the force. …
Continue reading →

Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think)

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged

Daniel Drezner, Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly as Much as You Think), International Security, Vol. 38, No. 1, Summer 2013.

This article evaluates whether the economic benefits of military preeminence and deep engagement are as great as proponents suggest. This evaluation begins by breaking down the arguments that military primacy yields economic returns into the most commonly articulated causal mechanisms. It then assesses what the scholarly literature and evidence can conclude about those causal mechanisms. The three most plausible pathways are the geoeconomic favoritism that foreign capital inflows provide for military super-powers; the geopolitical favoritism gained from an outsized military presence; and the public goods benefits that flow from hegemonic stability.
Continue reading →

How much military is enough?

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged , ,

Jill Lepore, “The Force,” The New Yorker, January 28 2013

The United States spends more on defense than all the other nations of the world combined. Between 1998 and 2011, military spending doubled, reaching more than seven hundred billion dollars a year—more, in adjusted dollars, than at any time since the Allies were fighting the Axis. …

The long history of military spending in the United States begins with the establishment of the War Department, in 1789. At first, the Secretary of War, a Cabinet member who, from the start, was a civilian, was called the Secretary at War, a holdover from the Revolution but also a prepositional manifestation of an ideological commitment: the department was chiefly to be called upon only if the nation was at war. Early Americans considered a standing army—a permanent army kept even in times of peace—to be a form of tyranny. “What a deformed monster is a standing army in a free nation,” Josiah Quincy, of Boston, wrote in 1774. Instead, they favored militias. About the first thing Henry Knox did when he became George Washington’s War Secretary was to draft a plan for establishing a uniform militia.
Continue reading →

Military spending and the EU crisis

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged , ,

Frank Slijper, “Guns, Debt and Corruption“, Transnational Institute, 14 April 2013

High levels of military spending played a key role in the unfolding economic crisis in Europe and continues to undermine efforts to resolve it.

Download Guns, Debt and Corruption: Full report (pdf, 525KB)
Download Guns, Debt and Corruption: Executive Summary (pdf, 77KB)
Continue reading →

The real cost of getting rid of Trident from Scotland: £150m

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged , ,

“The real cost of getting rid of Trident from Scotland: £150m“, HeraldScotland, 14 July 2013

Westminster warnings that the bill for ridding an independent Scotland of Trident would run into billions have been undermined by revelations that the UK Government previously put the cost at £150 million.
Continue reading →

U.S. Wastes Millions On Base In Afghanistan It Will Never Use

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged , ,

Hayes Brown, “U.S. Wastes Millions On Base In Afghanistan It Will Never Use“, ThinkProgress, Jul 10 2013

The United States military spent millions of dollars on a shining new command center in the Helmand province of Afghanistan — a center that will never be used and is now likely to be completely demolished.
Continue reading →

Europe’s guns, debt and corruption

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged ,

Frank Slijper, “Europe’s guns, debt and corruption“, Open Democracy, 27 April 2013

As social infrastructure is being slashed throughout most of Europe, spending on weapon systems has hardly been reduced. Perversely, military lobbyists warn of ‘disaster’ if any further cuts are made to military spending. But the real disaster has emerged from years of high military spending and corrupt arms deals. This second of two essays on military spending and the EU crisis, explores the role of the European arms trade, corruption and the role of arms exporting countries in fuelling a debt crisis, and why these ‘odious’ debts need to be written off.
Continue reading →

Austerity in Europe? Tighten the military belt

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged ,

Frank Slijper, “Austerity in Europe? Tighten the military belt“, Open Democracy, 6 May 2013

Five years into the economic crisis in Europe and the elephant in the room is the role of military spending in causing and perpetuating the economic crisis. As social infrastructure is slashed, spending on weapon systems has hardly been reduced. Part one of two essays on military spending and the EU crisis.
Continue reading →

Costs of U.S. Wars Linger for Over 100 Years

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged ,

Mike Baker, “Costs of U.S. Wars Linger for Over 100 Years,” Associated Press, March 19, 2013.

If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.

An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans — 148 years after the conflict ended.
Continue reading →

The 600-pound Gorilla: Why We Need a Smaller Defense Department

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged , ,

Ryan P. Allen, “The 600-pound Gorilla: Why We Need a Smaller Defense Department,” NDU Press, Jauary 2013.

The Defense Department is kept from being proportional to its actual role by organizational inertia and its size. Use of force, and the abundance of manpower and materiel that enable it, are traditional strengths, but the military is unsustainable at its present cost. Without a reduction, the Nation is weakened economically, and overreliance on the military has a corresponding effect on both U.S. status and on domestic regard for the military even as fewer Americans than ever have served or understand what the military does. Relying on the inherent goodness of man is insufficient; the U.S. Armed Forces must remain the most capable, but leaders must assess what is needed and the long-term effects of military responses and adjust accordingly.
Continue reading →

US Footing Greater Bill for Overseas Bases

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged ,

Donna Cassata, “Report: US Footing Greater Bill for Overseas Bases,” Associated Press, April 17, 2013.

The United States is footing more of the bill for overseas bases in Germany, Japan and South Korea even as the military reduces the number of American troops in Europe and strategically repositions forces in Asia, a congressional report says.

The exhaustive, yearlong investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee focused on costs and burden-sharing as the United States spends more than $10 billion a year to back up the U.S. military presence overseas, with 70 percent of the amount expended in the three nations. The figure does not include military personnel costs.
Continue reading →

The Scope of U.S. Global Military Presence

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged ,

Micah Zenko, “The Scope of U.S. Global Military Presence,” Council on Foreign Relations, April 30, 2013

That report—with twelve authors—was published yesterday by RAND: “Overseas Basing of U.S. Military Forces: An Assessment of the Relative Costs and Strategic Benefits.” It is, by far, the most impressive and comprehensive study of the scope, benefits, risks, costs, and consequences of America’s global military presence. Many citizens and policymakers are unaware of the number of troops stationed overseas to execute U.S. defense strategy: recent Pentagon data lists over 172,000 U.S. servicemembers on permanent or rotational deployments around the world (not including the 66,000 troops in Afghanistan).
Continue reading →

Afghanistan war has cost Britain more than £37bn, new book claims

Posted on by • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged , ,

Richard Norton-Taylor, “Afghanistan war has cost Britain more than £37bn, new book claims,” The Guardian, 30 May 2013

Frank Ledwidge, author of damning study Investment in Blood, says failing, bloody campaign has cost £2,000 per UK household.

The war in Afghanistan has cost Britain at least £37bn and the figure will rise to a sum equivalent to more than £2,000 for every taxpaying household, according to a devastating critique of the UK’s role in the conflict.
Continue reading →