It's time to cut the Pentagon's budget

As Benjamin Friedman, a defense analyst at the Cato Institute, recently noted in The Christian Science Monitor, “North Korea, Syria, and Iran trouble their citizens and neighbors, but with small economies, shoddy militaries, and a desire to survive, they pose little threat to us. Their combined military spending is one-sixtieth of ours.…And with an economy larger than ours, the European Union can protect itself.”

Furthermore, the degree of waste and fraud that attends Pentagon contracting and spending is infamous. A March report from the Government Accountability Office compiles an impressive list of serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense, including misreporting of contracts, assets, and properties. Travis Sharp, the defense analyst, tells me: “Reports from across the political spectrum, including from watchdog groups and defense contractors, have estimated that over $50 billion per year could be saved by eliminating a few controversial weapons systems or by reforming the Pentagon’s supply chain, I.T., and personnel management practices. Of course, winding down operations in Afghanistan and Iraq would add even more to these potential savings.”…

The important question is not how much money we spend but whether we spend it effectively and meet our defense needs in the process. Demanding that military spending be driven by economic growth is just another way of saying that military spending is not about safety. It’s about spending as an end in itself.