Washington Rules_ America's Path to Permanent War - Andrew J. Bacevich [102]
The United States does not rely on this mix of military professionals and profit-oriented contractors because doing so delivers desired policy outcomes at an affordable price. Based on those criteria, the arrangement flunks, as the post-9/11 record amply demonstrates. Only when it comes to satisfying the ambitions of those wielding power and influence in Washington, while giving the American people a pass, can this system be said to work.
The Founders, the commander of the Continental Army not least among them, disparaged standing armies as inconsistent with republican virtue while posing a potential threat to republican institutions. Today, Americans evince little interest in cultivating virtue, preferring instead the frantic pursuit of happiness, defined more often than not in terms of wealth, celebrity, and personal license. Washington meanwhile concerns itself less with the well-being of republican institutions than with feathering its own nest, relying on adventurism abroad to divert attention from chronic dysfunction at home.
The so-called all-volunteer force satisfies the interests of both, conferring on citizens a semblance of autonomy and providing semiwarriors with an instrument well suited to the pursuit of imperial ambitions. Individual Americans are relieved of an unwanted duty, which many mistake as freedom. The semiwarriors also acquire a sort of freedom—to employ American military might however they see fit. Both parties in this arrangement profess to hold in high regard the 0.5 percent of the population actually bearing the burden of military service. Neither party concerns itself with the question of whether this arrangement accords with commonplace notions of fairness or efficacy. For the American people and for Washington, the arrangement is simply convenient, and that suffices.
There is a second way in which the Washington consensus meshes with the prevailing civic culture. Privileging the here and now at the expense of the future, those who govern and those who are governed are one in refusing to pay their bills. The matter can be simply stated: Washington wants guns; the American people want butter; massive and habitual deficit spending satisfies both appetites, with responsibility for repaying that debt off-loaded onto future generations.
Here the record of the post-9/11 period is especially instructive. When George W. Bush became president in 2001, the Pentagon budget amounted to $305 billion and the total national debt stood at $5.7 trillion. Over the next eight years, the red ink flowed. Military spending doubled while annual federal deficits averaged over $600 billion. By the time Bush left office, the national debt had reached $10.6 trillion.
During the first year of the Obama presidency, with defense spending and overall federal spending increasing even as tax receipts fell, the annual budget deficit hit an all-time high of $1.4 trillion or 10 percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP). The annual cost of servicing that debt reached a staggering $383 billion, equivalent to the GDP of Belgium, and continued to climb. So, too, did the resources funneled to the Pentagon: The Obama administration announced plans to increase military spending by 5 percent above what it had averaged during the Bush years.
For year two of the Obama presidency, the White House projected a federal budget deficit of approximately $1.3 trillion, an estimate to be taken with a grain of salt given the consistent tendency of previous administrations to lowball such matters. Stung by criticism from Republicans posing as fiscal conservatives, Obama promised to curb the federal government