When I first planned to write this week's entry, my original topic choice was Saudi Arabia's decision to cut diplomatic ties with Iran following riots sparked by the Saudi execution of a Shiite cleric. (This may be covered in a future entry.) While reading the Sunday newspaper, a better topic came to mind: the economics of dismantling part of the US Military-Industrial complex.
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In a recent NY Times opinion page article, the author discusses how the Death Star may have been a project that was too big to fail, and how the rebellion may not have been well received because of the economic chaos that ensued after its destruction. Given how much of our economy depends on the military to keep it afloat, do we suffer from the same problem that the fictional galactic empire may have suffered with?
Let's say that we use a reported figure of $718,000,000,000 for current US Military spending and attempt to cut that in half, and spend $359,000,000,000 on domestic projects such as rebuilding our roads, providing health care, educating people and shoring up Social Security. What would happen if the budget were cut quickly, without a proper transition?
First, what would happen to the displaced top secret technology workers? How would they find employment? What fields would they work in? This is not a spurious question. The US had to address this concern at the end of the Cold War. Yet, our "defense" spending is higher than ever. The USSR had even greater problems, as it lost the Cold War and had no plan to reintegrate the displaced workers into a civilian economy. In fact, the "West" was more than willing to pay displaced Soviet scientists NOT to sell their services to a rogue country. Can you imagine what costs would exist for transitioning some of these workers to the civilian economy?
Next, America operates in a much more transparent economic environment than most countries. How would we use the newly freed funds? (Approximately $1,200 per US Citizen.) In theory, that could pay much of the cost for giving every citizen subsidized health insurance. But that money would be just as needed for education, infrastructure renewal, etc.... How would the funds be divided? And if an equitable division could be arranged, then where would we get the new, trained, skilled workers? It might make sense to do a gradual transition, if only to train the workers we need in the fields we plan to staff with new workers.
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We must preserve our old skill sets. Although we do not need to build new B-52 bombers, they must be maintained. (Note: Planned replacements for these old workhorses have been built, but still do not have the ruggedness of this "ancient" plane. We may actually need to build replacements, albeit fitted with modern technology at some point in the future.) But, how do we preserve the skills to make nuclear weapons? What about germ and chemical warfare? We can't afford to be blind sided by some rogue state that decides to use these weapons - we must know how to deploy them and to defend ourselves against them. Moving forward is a bitch. But forgetting the lessons of our past is even worse. It saddened me when many Americans looked at China's putting a man in space as old news - a "been there, done that" attitude. They are doing it with NEW technology. We have forgotten how to do it with OLD technology. And the workers who built that technology for us are dying off without proper replacements....
So we need to keep part of the Military-Industrial complex in place, no matter what peace advocates want. The only to have peace (and I cite Sun Tsu) is to be prepared for war well enough so that others will avoid battle with you. How might this peace be obtained?
First, we need to get the Military-Industrial complex into making civilian goods again. Instead of making limited use "Mil-Spec" electronics, they should develop trusted civilian sources for ruggedized technology - and use that for new military uses. Instead of using 30 year old chip design, make sure that backward compatible design (with both hardware and software) be incorporated into all Military electronics, so that upgrades can be cost effective. However, this is only one area of improvement. We must resist the idea of over designing products. Yes, we want to keep our troops safe. But are $350,000,000 fighter jets the answer, when cheaper solutions can be found? Why should fighter jets be all-purpose? There is no good reason that the Air Force and Navy must have compatible jets - they just need to have as many interchangeable "off the shelf" parts as humanly possible, so that customization for each service can be done as cheaply as possible.
Next, we must provide for the threats of the 21st century. And many of them will be electronic. We need to protect our businesses from foreign hacking, and we do a piss poor job of that. Luckily, our businesses do a better job (from what I can tell) protecting themselves than our government does. Heck, when North Korea has the implicit protection/cooperation of China to hack our systems, then we have problems. (See: Bureau 121 - Shenyang China.) What is our government doing to protect us? Not that much - it is focused on keeping the old military technology alive. If we are to make this transition, we also need to provide more profitable opportunities for businesses in the Military-Industrial complex, and this is an area that will help American civilians and the profits of the Military-Industrial complex.
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Hopefully, whoever we elect on Election Day 2016 will be wise enough to see this opportunity to make America strong again. We no longer need to be "Great". But we do need to take care of our own needs as a society, and not just the needs of one sector of that society....
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