Foreign Policy In Focus

Exceeding the expectations of many arms control advocates, the deficit panel commissioned by President Obama earlier this year has actually proposed $100 billion in cuts to the Pentagon budget (do consult Miriam Pemberton’s brief treatment of its pros and cons). The cuts come primarily from unnecessary weapons procurements, overseas basing, and health care benefits for military families.

It is rather stunning to see a bipartisan, mainstream group of advisors concoct such an attack on the Pentagon sacred cow. Such a recommendation departs even from the stated position of President Obama, who likely only commissioned the panel in an effort to co-opt the deficit hysteria that was threatening his ambitious domestic agenda. This should be a credit to the efforts of Barney Frank’s Sustainable Defense Task Force, who lobbied hard to let the Pentagon contract its share of austerity fever.

The cuts are somewhat modest (though proportional to cuts sought in other areas of the federal budget), and the recommendations don’t necessarily connect all the dots from various program cuts to that $100 billion figure. Moreover, it remains to be seen whether they will receive the endorsement of the full panel, not to mention of Congress. But for the first time in recent memory, there exists a mainstream substrate on which to catalyze opposition to defense spending. You want those weapons contracts for your district? Fine, vote against the recommendations of the bipartisan deficit panel. 

Predictably, and if you can pardon the expression, industry groups are up in arms. Marion Blakey, chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association, has exclaimed that cuts to new weapons systems would “undercut the capability of the nation's defense industrial base to design, build, and support complex cutting-edge defense systems." Of course, this is a thinly veiled admission that such programs have little to do with defense and everything to do with that “industrial base,” the military-industrial complex that has its tentacles in virtually every congressional district.

As Miriam Pemberton and John Feffer have shown, there is tremendous unrealized potential in that industrial base that doesn’t require a steady stream of Pentagon funds for exorbitantly expensive war toys. But just in case major arms contractors aren’t ready to convert their capabilities into less destructive enterprises, there is always the international market. Already anticipating potential cuts in the Pentagon’s procurement budget, the Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon behemoths announced last month their plans for a $60 billion sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia. This would be the largest arms transfer in American history. And arms exports next year already expected to surge. 

Nonetheless, the commission’s interim proposal allows for defense cuts to make a welcome (and much belated) ingress into the political mainstream. The panel has taken a few real political risks that are likely to ruffle some feathers. In addition to the weapons cuts, the panel also suggests cuts to Social Security and – gasp – recommends against repealing health care reform.

This, of course, is not tantamount to world peace. But if the panel is willing to take an ax (or at least a scalpel) to the Pentagon and Social Security third rails, and if it is even amenable to jumping on the health care reform landmine only two months before the Tea Party comes to town, why not go after that other massive drain on spending? Ending the war in Afghanistan, which already costs upwards of $6 billion per month by the most conservative estimates, would go leaps and bounds toward reducing expenditures on every aspect of the defense budget already slated for cuts: weapons procurement, basing, and medical care. With the summer drawdown already looking increasingly farcical, perhaps President Obama needs a bipartisan panel to tell him that this war is too expensive (since “wrong,” or at least “wrongheaded,” has gotten less traction). Like the defense cuts already proposed, when this idea appears in otherwise bland bipartisan circles, we will know it’s finally gotten somewhere.

“America is addicted to oil.” It’s been more than five years since George W. Bush made this bizarre declaration. For a president who opposed virtually every piece of legislation to curb the use of fossil fuels, it was, shall we say, ironic. And even more so in light of the Iraq War, which may or may not have been about oil, but which certainly consumed huge amounts of it. In 2006, when Bush made this argument that the nation’s dependence on oil posed a threat to its security, the Pentagon consumed 320,000 barrels of oil a day, making this one department of the US government a bigger guzzler of oil than all but 35 countries in the world. Here was a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

With the war in Afghanistan and the upkeep of America’s vast military apparatus around the world, the Pentagon continues to be the government’s biggest consumer of oil. In addition to contributing to the nation’s long-term security threat, this situation poses a more immediate danger. Oil, the lifeblood of modern war, has become a target on the battlefield. Nowhere is this more evident than along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where dozens of US convoys carrying fuel have been exploded by insurgents. These attacks are just the latest examples of a vicious circle in which oil begets war and war begets oil.

If asked to offer a solution to this seemingly intractable problem, a Martian looking down on planet Earth might recommend a drastic reduction in the nation’s military ventures, thus tackling the oil problem by tackling the war problem. But the self-identified guardians of US national security would surely label such advice dangerous and naïve. Instead, the Pentagon has offered its own solution to the problem, one that will allow it to keep its wars but lose its oil. Last week, The New York Times and others reported that the military is, to use the proverbial phrase of our day, going green. This transformation will involve changes across the spectrum, from powering assault vessels and aircraft with algae and other biofuels to using solar panels and efficient light bulbs on military bases.  

The coverage of this announcement has been overwhelmingly positive. The story in The New York Times quoted military spokespeople and officials who outlined all the strategic and economic advantages of the initiative. Writing for Slate, Fred Kaplan suggested that this development “could lower the entire nation’s energy costs.” And Jon Stewart had a bit in which he suggested that this was a progressive initiative, which conservatives would oppose, if they were actually consistent with their principles.

These responses aren’t surprising. Greening, we all know, is good pr for any organization. Then, there is the more specific association of innovation in the military with innovation and economic uplift for America writ large. When we get excited about greening the military, we think of how military initiatives such as the interstate highway system, NASA, and early computers, ultimately benefitted the country and the economy as a whole.

Before we pop the recycled cork and let the organic champagne flow, let’s take a moment to consider the problems with this position. First, there is no assurance that the promise of a significantly greener military will actually be realized. This isn’t the first time the Defense Department announced a green initiative. As with most organizations that promise to become green, the results of these past initiatives have been much more modest than their advertisements. Second, as The New York Times reports, “Because the military has moved into renewable energy so rapidly, much of the technology currently being used is commercially available or has been adapted for the battlefield from readily available civilian models.” So far, at least, the military is not really innovating green technology so much as consuming it.

Many progressives, including myself, would support the government using its buying power to invest in green energy. It’s unfortunate that such initiatives only gain broad support in the context of war spending. America, it seems, is addicted not just to oil or even to war, but also, to the war economy. This is an addiction that we could break, if only we stopped using war to solve all of our problems.