The War Budget

by Richard Trotsky

Today I just so happened to look up the actual figures behind the US military budget and was simply astonished. In 2015, this very year, the military budget is $600 billion. Yes, $600 billion spent on the military. I actually found out, as it’s public knowledge, how this enormous amount of cash will be divvied up among different areas. 

There are 5 main areas that the budget addresses, and expenditures are in order from highest to lowest. Operations/Maintenance, Military Personnel, Procurement, Research/Development, and Revolving and management funds. The lion’s share will go to Operations/Maintenance, $198.7 billion, followed by Military Personnel $135.2 billion, Procurement $90.4 billion, Research/Development $63.5 billion, and finally the little guy, Revolving and management funds at $1.2 billion.   

             

Now as far as the Operations/Maintenance, and Military personnel areas are concerned, that’s the cost of sustaining our multitude of military bases that are located here, and in foreign nations along with the cost of all members of the military. However I seriously question if the allocated funds for these two areas are simply that necessary, it’s well know that the Pentagon consistently overpays for different items, but not many know why. 

The way federal budgeting works is if you have any funds remaining at the end of the fiscal year, the budget for the following fiscal year is reduced, seeing as how all the funds were unneeded. That’s the dirty little secret. But if you buy items at ridiculously overpriced costs, and misclassify other items it makes it very easy to expend all budgeted funding for that year.

However, in regard to Personnel, that may perhaps be a little trickier. That would be the cost of employing all the military personnel worldwide, but do we really need that many military installations and personnel. In the Army alone there are 380,000 enlisted personnel. Many will argue that we need a deterrent to aggressor states encroaching on our allies, but that isn’t really a fully valid argument. The main singular purpose for having a military force is for defensive of the nation from foreign invasion, to my recollection the last time we were invaded was…that’s right, we actually haven’t been invaded. (Since 1812 - ed note.  Unless you count Poncho Villa as an invasion.....)

Even during the War of 1812, after naval skirmishes between England and the United States via privateers and naval forces, small American armies were the invading force in the early stages of the war. It was only after the Napoleonic Wars in 1814, that the British sent larger invasion armies into the United States. Perhaps I’m missing something or history is lying, but it seems pretty cut and dry to me. But with that being said, do we really need all these personnel and installations? In my personal opinion in these two areas a massive external audit needs to be performed.

Let’s talk about procurement shall we. For this example I’ll simply state the cost of a couple of pieces of fancy high tech military technology, the F-22 Raptor, and the M1 Abrams. I’ll begin with the M1 Abrams tank, the cost per unit is a meager $6 million. The Army actually stated it had no need of any more in 2013, however Congress, spurred on by a certain manufacturer, essentially forced production. Why? It was well known that this piece of equipment was essentially uncontested and the existing vehicles could be upgraded at a much cheaper price. I’ll tell you why, because war is big business. And now on to the pinnacle of ridiculously expensive military hardware, the glorious F-22 Raptor. This fighter costs a whopping $361 million apiece, yes apiece. Yes it has fancy stealth technology, but it’s outperformed by last generation fighters. 

So why are they buying shiny expensive toys if they can’t keep up with the rest of the kids on the block? It all comes back to war being big business, and how firmly entrenched big business is in our political system. The war industry has significant amounts of lobbying efforts to butter up politicians so they get these massive contracts.

Just think about it for a minute or two, $600 billion spent for “defence”. If that figure could be cut by even 25%  that would be $150 billion in revenue that gets freed up. I can think of quite a few things that we could do with $150 billion that this country desperately needs. We have a crumbling infrastructure that in some areas is in dire need of overhaul, and is actually a public safety risk. Investing in public works projects would actually serve to create a good amount of jobs. 

We could invest more funding into the education system since funding for that is essentially cut annually, this would allow our children to have greater opportunities. We could even invest in creating a comprehensive program to aid the homeless to either get themselves established and financially independent, or enroll them in some form of addiction treatment/mental health programs if needed for them to obtain financial independence. There are so many possibilities that would open up if our politicians weren’t so focused on keeping the wealthy happy, so I must ask, how happy are you?