Where the Money Is, Redux
Even during what conservative hawks insist on calling “America’s holiday from history,” the Clinton 90s, the country never stopped spending Cold-War levels of money on the military. Meanwhile, the US is now spending more than ever to prosecute relatively tiny wars whose merits are contestable at best. See that little ledge all the way to the left of the graph? There’s your reasonable level of defense spending for a country – this one – that faces no serious threats. See the difference between what we’re actually spending and what we were spending then? There’s your infrastructure budget or health care reform or, God Help Us, capital-gains tax cut package as suits your fancy.
Comment by gbh —
December 6, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
If your spending spikes are too steep even for a mountain stage of the Tour then it is time to cut back.
Comment by Mithras —
December 6, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
Although I am sympathetic to the view that we spend too much on the Department of War, wouldn’t a more relevant chart show the amount of spending as a percentage of GDP? Using that metric, today’s outlays are not so much bigger compared to the late 40s.
Comment by max —
December 6, 2008 @ 6:20 pm
How does the line ‘Cold War Average’ wind up below spending in all the years except 47-50?
max
['I'm sympathetic to your point as well, but the chart reeks.']
Comment by Mithras —
December 6, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
max-
Inflation.
Comment by albatross —
December 6, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
Mithras:
I’m not quite sure why a doubling of GDP requires a doubling of military spending, which it seems like your measure would suggest.
Comment by bobbyp —
December 6, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
@2: Not precisely. We have experienced significant real growth since 1945. Can you reasonably argue that any conceivable “threat” has grown similarly or to the same extent over that same period?
At its current level defense spending is a social disease.
Comment by El Cid —
December 6, 2008 @ 8:28 pm
Does anyone else remember how the right wing screamed for the entire Clinton administration and the early Bush Jr. that Clinton had ‘hollowed out’ or betrayed or underfunded the military?
Well, I’ll bet you that Democrats will remember being blamed for ‘destroying the military’ because of Bush Sr’s closing of old and useless bases as part of the post-Soviet climbdown.
And as such, I don’t see Democrats taking on the military again.
I’m not beyond being pleasantly surprised, but it will depend on what other policy successes Obama has.
Comment by Mithras —
December 6, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
albatross-
Yeah, I’m not saying it should double when GDP doubles. I’m just saying the percentage of GDP number is better than looking at inflation-adjusted spending in determining the total burden on society of pouring money down the five-sided hole in northern Virginia. (Inflation-adjusted spending per capita would be better, too.)
Anyway, numbers alone don’t get you very far in answering the main question: Is it too much? You need to lay the numbers against mission. To figure out if the amount of resources is sufficient or excessive, you need an agreement on what we’re trying to accomplish. Yes, the cold war is over, and my instinct tells me that no matter what the threats out there are now, total national security spending should be lower. But looking at the numbers alone doesn’t prove my instinct is right.
Comment by y81 —
December 6, 2008 @ 8:58 pm
That is Patrick Appel, not Andrew Sullivan.
Comment by Mithras —
December 6, 2008 @ 9:02 pm
@7
I think you’re right to expect that the Dems will not cut overall military spending. But we might be able to make changes that will hold down future increases. Many of the cost drivers that have caused the budget to spike are the big-ticket weapons systems: high-tech fantasy projects like strategic missile defense and the F-22. Every year development of these science fiction programs requires more and more resources, as sunk costs spur more spending because no one wants to concede they don’t work and never will. Sec. Gates has shown a strong interest in terminating such money pits, and I think that’s why Obama is keeping him on.
Comment by Thoreau —
December 7, 2008 @ 1:28 am
Mithras does make a good point: If the economic pain of a massive military depends on the proportion of GDP rather than the inflation-adjusted cost, then perhaps war is an inevitable disease of prosperity: When you’re rich enough that a massive military machine is not a painful burden on the country, then the country will have a massive military machine. And since shiny things get used, war becomes inevitable.
Comment by Bill H —
December 7, 2008 @ 11:44 am
I think it depends on why you think we are expending this money. If it is being spent for the purpose of countering a threat, then the amount should depend on the degree of threat; not a percent of GDP, or the size of the weapons or the measure of society, but the degree and nature of the threat. If we are spending it as a means of providing profit for manufacturers then the threat is irrelevant and spending will vary in ways that are not related to threat, state of actual war, or nature of the threatening agent.
If you look at the graph, it is quite obvious which is the case.
Comment by Mithras+6 —
December 7, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
Again, I think we’re spending too much on procurement and R&D. For example, it’s ridiculous that we’re spending over $4 billion just on countering IEDs, when the threat changes faster than a huge bureaucracy can counter it. Future Combat Systems is a boondoggle, too. The procurement process has been captured by the big manufacturers and their civilian and uniformed enablers in the Pentagon. By getting these budgetary black holes under control, we can stem the future increases.
Having said that, it’s clear that the vast majority of the cost comes from two sources: (1) the tempo of operations in Iraq (that feeds into purchases of aircraft, vehicles, equipment and ammunition) and (2) the decision to have 3 million people in uniform (active duty and reserves). One of those problems will be fixed in relatively short order. The other is a question of basic priorities: Do you want to have the ability to project force around the world? If you want that option, you pay for it.
Let’s be honest that the huge level of military spending is not primarily due to what effectively amounts to graft by the contractors (although that’s what it is), but is the unavoidable cost of having a large force. Reducing excessive future increases in military spending is a management issue that enjoys broad support. Reducing current spending levels is a political problem that there is no widespread agreement on.
Comment by Thoreau —
December 7, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
Actually, I take back my post. Poor countries fight wars too. War isn’t a symptom of prosperity, it’s more complicated than that.
Comment by Thoreau —
December 7, 2008 @ 3:47 pm
I still think we could do with a drastically smaller military, however.
Comment by ajay —
December 8, 2008 @ 7:39 am
4 – no, it’s adjusted for inflation. It’s in constant 2008 dollars. If that’s an average, then the white area below the line should be the same as the black area above it, and it clearly isn’t. The graph’s wrong.
The percentage-of-GDP depends on what you mean by “too much”. If you mean “we are spending more on defense than is reasonable, given the international situation” then you want the actual amount; if you mean “we are spending so much on defense that it is distorting or slowing our economy” then you want percentage-of-GDP. Two separate arguments.
Comment by Doug T —
December 8, 2008 @ 10:05 am
One potential issue with using inflation adjusted dollars as a measure is whether or not Soldier “prodictivity” has risen as fast as civilian sector productivity. My guess is that it hasn’t, so that the personnel costs of the DoD will tend to rise at a rate above inflation. To do the same mission gets more expensive over time. The same argument that people use to explain rising education costs.
Comment by Barry —
December 8, 2008 @ 11:48 am
doug T, this would depend upon the mission. As we saw in ‘91 and (Spring) ‘03, US soldier productivity is very high for conventional warfare.
For unconventional warfare[1] soldier productivity is very low for everybody; when the administration leans on the generals to not even prepare for it, it’s much worse (and if the generals don’t want to prepare for it, it’s still worse).
-Barry
[1] Assuming that the unconventional war is not ’solved’ by conventional means. See Romans, Soviets, Mongols, etc. for, ah, ‘high productivity’ anti-guerrilla methods.
Comment by Picador —
December 8, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
What ajay said @16. The graph is already inflation-adjusted. How can that average — which I take to be the mean — be correct?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 8, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
Have to agree with the complaints about the “average” bar – aside from a tiny dip in 1955, it’s clearly a baseline for post-1951 spending.
To quibble further with a guy who’s fond of suggesting small decreases have real effects, the 1991-1998 or so drop is rather substantial. Make a cut like that in any program over 7 years, and supporters will call it apocalyptically gutted.
Comment by Eric Martin —
December 8, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
wouldn’t a more relevant chart show the amount of spending as a percentage of GDP?
Not necessarily because GDP has grown at a very fast clip during that time – faster than inflation – and thus tying defense spending to GDP produces distorted effects.
Discussed here.
Comment by Barry —
December 8, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
“To quibble further with a guy who’s fond of suggesting small decreases have real effects, the 1991-1998 or so drop is rather substantial. Make a cut like that in any program over 7 years, and supporters will call it apocalyptically gutted. ”
Unless, of course, some, um, ’cause’ for this program was to either go away or radically diminish. Like the USSR.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 8, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
No duh.