Defense Budget

This years Defense budget is said to have a 7% increase over the last budget. I've yet to find an explanation as to what that 7% entails, but I have found a huge amount of whining related to projects that "military analysts" in the MSM think should go. I've linked to Fred Kaplan's "War Stories" feature at Slate. This is a typical piece in the press.

Fred has an interesting way of adding up defense budgets. He seems to want to add any appropriation related to the military as having to be part of their budget. The point being that these appropriations are analyzed and approved separately, but that fact doesn't seem to have meaning for Kaplan.

One way that administrations understate the magnitude of military spending (and this practice long antedates George W. Bush) is to talk only about the "Department of Defense budget." Yet this comprises only a portion (though, granted, the largest portion) of what officials outside the Pentagon call the "national defense budget."

The DoD budget for fiscal year 2007 is indeed $439.3 billion (though more about that computation in a moment). But look at the Office of Management and Budget's "Analytical Perspectives" documents, specifically Table 27-1, "Budget Authority and Outlays by Function, Category and Program." The category called "National Defense" includes not only the Defense Department's budget but also the "defense activities" of the Department of Energy (mainly nuclear warheads and the national weapons labs, totaling $16 billion) and several other federal agencies ($4.4 billion), as well as $3.3 billion in various "mandatory" programs (mainly accrual payments to the military retirement fund).

I'm going to chime in specifically on the DOE that he seems to choose to point and screach about. First, the DOE is an independant functionary in the government. And for good reason. That little "nuclear" thing that Kaplan points out is rather important. If the DOE budget was tied to the DOD budget, the independance and control of a little group known as the NRC would be suspect. The NRC is the single agency responsible for oversite and regulation of Nuclear and Radiological material. The military, which is well known for not always being the most careful with dangerous stuff, is required to abide by the regulations of the NRC, thus ensuring that control of nuclear and radiological materials is standardized in this country. So, tell me, do you really want to attach the spending of such groups to the military budget?

Kaplan then goes on to rail against several of the big budget items for future weapon systems, and takes the cowards way out and doesn't bother to take a stand on which is unneccessary.

I could go on. I'm not proposing that Congress should kill all these weapons systems—just that it should (as a starter) ask if funding all of them is necessary, especially at these extravagant levels, given the threats that are out there in the world, and the need to set priorities, given that we're broke.

We're broke? Let's look at this from another angle. How much money has been invested in these systems? Should there be no benefit from that investment? I'd say that the military analysts have to make the decisions on what is needed. The 1889 trapdoor rifle was just fine in the Spanish-American war, right up to the point when the Spanish started shooting at the soldiers with Mausers using smokeless powder. Technology moves forward. Having the best technology will help in aiding the soldier to survive in the battle field, not to mention win battles.

What most of the commentators in the MSM are continuing is the long tradition of second guessing the professionals on what will be needed in the future. Just because the status-quo is working just fine right now doesn't mean it will in the near future.