What’s Wrong with the World

I have always thought of myself as conservative, and reading the reaction from others, most people who know me do too. Including principled conservatives who, for example, were against the Iraq war. But I have never imagined a principled stand for budgetary and fiscal restraint was inherently contradictory to a strong military (I reject your crypto-sematic formulation of a supposed thing as the "Military-Industrial Complex." There are ties between the military and some elements of business, there always have been, and always will. If you don't like that, complain to George Washington for dealing with military suppliers.)

There is an inherent tension between fiscal restraint and military spending, so that we will always be asking whether that new weapon system is a necessary expense rather than merely desired. But that question is irreducibly what governance is all about; the fact that you are asking it open to either answer means you are engaging in fiscal responsibility tied to responsibility regarding the common good. Fiscal restraint was never the final, ultimate conservative goal, it is an element of the methods, means, and intermediate goals for the things which are the final goals - justice, freedom, peace.

We could be much more fiscally restrained by simply doing away with the military altogether. And not bother raising an army when threatened, either. Could get rid of the state department while we're at it. This would make those government spenders sit up and take notice, wouldn't it? Of course, it would also open us up to all sorts of OTHER problems that cost money. Lots of money. Save a dollar on taxes, spend 1,000 on hiring guards for my farm goods. Hmmm, don't know if that's such a good deal.

Our "Empire", as you put it, is an interesting thing. All our conquered enemies end up better off than their neighbors whom we never bothered. Our oppression is interesting too: we will FORCE you to decide your own fate, whether you like it or not. While we do tend to stick our noses where it doesn't belong on occasion, it's not really empire building in the old-fashioned sense. This does not excuse the interference of itself, but can't you use a less inaccurate term to describe it? We're a lot more like Jane Austen's Emma than like Julius Caesar. And just about as effective as Emma, too.

All true enough, but we're a wealthy enough country to have a first class military for national defense and defense of our interests overseas in things like breaking up terrorist camps and keeping sea lanes open. It's amazing that Obama wants to spent nearly a trillion dollars on BS urban construction projects, midnight basketball, and housing help for losers, but also wants to cut weapons systems like the F-22 and even the Osprey, as if it's extravagent for the Air Force and Marines not to want its pilots to fly around in 40 year old airplanes.

I should think it obvious that the issue concerns more than simply the inherent tension between fiscal restraint and military spending ... asking whether that new weapon system is a necessary expense rather than merely desired..., but instead whether we should even possess Our "Empire", regardless of the rose-tinted glasses through which it may be viewed. And, of course, the third paragraph is an expression of pure hysteria, as if to suggest that we will either entertain a purely instrumental discussion of what means are requisite to our ends of "justice, peace, and freedom" - never pausing to declare the substantive meanings of these terms, which is the locus of debate between defenders of the imperium and its opponents - or abolish the military altogether as a needless extravagance.

As regards the F-22, far be from me to defend Obama's spending priorities, but it is an open question whether the F-22, impressive though it may be, is really necessary, given that no potential adversary fields a fighter aircraft comparable to our updated, 40-year old F-15s and F-16s. There is also the very real trend towards unmanned aircraft, which, taken together with the superiority of existing American air platforms, suggests that the F-22, at the stratospheric per-copy price, may be a white elephant - at least at this time.

Maximos,

I think Mark Bowden makes an excellent case for the F-22 in the latest issue of "The Atlantic".

Also, while I realize this is a blog post, it still seems sort of ridiculous to claim that "neither the Empire nor its voluptuaries are conservative". I mean I actually bothered to look up the word "voluptuary" and discovered that it means "a person whose chief interests are luxury and the gratification of sensual appetites." So are you arguing that those of us who support the American "Empire" (your word, not mine) do so only to satisfy our sensual appetites?

I did like one point in the Taki article -- Zmirak's suggestion that our rich allies who we have protected all these years might want to start paying for our defense help or better yet, develop their own militaries to protect their interests. Otherwise, I disagree with everything Zmirak has to say.

Yes, they are voluptuaries, inasmuch as a)one of the principal justifications for the Empire is that it increases aggregate material welfare (more and cheaper luxuries!), and b)most of its defenders evince altogether too much enthusiasm for the existence and mechanics of the Empire, ie., have a libidinal overinvestment in the operations of the Empire, a passionate identification with the object which becomes all the more intense the more bombastic and hyper-macho the declaration and enactment of "American ideals". It's like a kinky sort of discipline and punish, or perhaps a need to "educate" the naive subordinate.

Bowden's piece was interesting, but it put me in mind of Lockheed and Northrup ad copy.

The defense budget is a minor part of the overall federal budget. I will not defend the pork and waste in it, but its budget was $486B out of the $2.9T that was spent in the official budget for 2008. Give it a rest. The DoD has the largest bureaucracy in North America, and yet manages to have a pretty good idea of how its budget was spent. There are many, many government agencies that could learn to follow their example, not the least of which is the US Department of Education, which is an incredible waste of tax dollars for something that actually harms millions of American kids.

Have I defended the Dept. of Ed?

Didn't think so.

This is not a question of relative percentages of the budget, but of whether that percentage, whatever it is, is both necessary and affordable. The answer is "No", on both counts.

Maximos, pssssstt, keep it under your hat and just between you and me, but there's a new game in town. Guy named Obama is President, has a lot of liberals coming out of the closet and showing their true colors. A wacko named Pelosi is now Speaker of the House, no more Joe Martin or Tip O'Neill.
Keep an eye on them, start reading the papers, watching TV.

You don't have to thank me for updating you, anything for a friend.

I just now read Johnt's comment. I'd been not paying attention to this thread. Johnt, I laughed out loud. Thank you.

And really, I do think Mike T.'s comment about percentages is relevant. I'm no defender of "empire," but let's face it, the implication of the main post is that a conservatism that is "actually concerned about the deficit" will be "striving mightily to dismantle" that portion of the budget. Oh, wait, that wasn't an _implication_, those were the actual _words_. Now, if it's a matter of _priorities_, then it seems to me that the point about percentages of pork is highly relevant to where a conservatism concerned about the deficit should be placing its "striving mightily" priorities.

I also have to admit that I'd even be somewhat less bothered by our huge military if I didn't realize, very sadly, that there is a fair amount of social engineering/brainwashing/social experimenting going on in the military itself.

We have a half trillion dollar "Department of Defense" and non-existent borders. It seems to me that we could dissolve the country for considerably less money.

The question is "What are we getting for our money?"

And the answer seems to be - not very much.

While we do tend to stick our noses where it doesn't belong on occasion, it's not really empire building in the old-fashioned sense.

Yes, it's sort of a "reverse empire", which has all of the expenses of empire with none of the benefits which empires have traditionaly accrued.

The British Empire, long after Adam Smith, required its conquered territories to supply it with raw material and to buy its finished products.

A Roman Emperor or Britsh Raj would observe American trade practices and assume this country had been defeated in war by China and the Far East.

Have I defended the Dept. of Ed?

Didn't think so.

This is not a question of relative percentages of the budget, but of whether that percentage, whatever it is, is both necessary and affordable. The answer is "No", on both counts.

The Department of Defense's budget is only 17% of the normal federal budget. It is only a few percentage points of our GDP. If the United States can no longer afford it, that is the result of an economic collapse, probably brought on by the other 83% of the federal budget, the unfunded liabilities, regulations and current federal debt.

You are, with all due respect, completely, flat out wrong when you say that the DoD is not affordable. If the federal government were reduced to the DoJ, DoTreasury, DHS, DoTransportation, DoD and DoS, it would be very affordable, weighing in at $2T less than it currently costs. It would require no strain on the US economy to support that budget whatsoever. Rather, what threatens the US economy is the majority of federal spending, which is mostly some form of social welfare spending.

I don't know what our GDP is right now, but last year it was around $13T. $486B is about 4% of that, so it is ridiculous to even pretend that we cannot afford to spend a large amount of money to fund our military. If you are worried about the federal government's spending, worry about Social Security and Medicare which have over $55T in unfunded (and unfundable!) liabilities.

If any given quantity of spending is unnecessary, it is to that extent unaffordable. The diversion of resources into unnecessary employments results in their unavailability for necessary employments, which in this case might be something as simple as taxpayers having more of their own money - and this is always unaffordable, as we cannot afford so to misallocate resources.

If any given quantity of spending is unnecessary, it is to that extent unaffordable. The diversion of resources into unnecessary employments results in their unavailability for necessary employments, which in this case might be something as simple as taxpayers having more of their own money - and this is always unaffordable, as we cannot afford so to misallocate resources.

Well then, it depends on who you are talking to with regard to what is necessary. Some people think that heavily armed ground forces are obsolete. Others don't. Some think that UAVs are the next big thing, others think that we need both UAVs and modern warplanes. Few people argue that we need a strong, blue water Navy.

One of the advantages that we have is that most of our wasteful spending is not for the essential functions of government. If the federal government were to shed all of its social programs tomorrow and lowered taxes accordingly, no one would feel any particular burden from the taxes spent on the core functions of the federal government.

It should also be pointed out that the current level of defense spending could be maintained, among other essential functions, on less than $1T/year of tax revenues. As of last year's GDP, that is 1/13 of our GDP, resulting in a tax rate that most people would never, ever lose sleep over.

Who cares whether we can afford the empire, in some purely economic sense, especially if - purely as an hypothetical, inasmuch as in the actually-existing universe, this would be impossible - we abolished the welfare state? The question is whether there is any necessity of maintaining 700-800 garrisons in 144 countries & etc. And there is not.

Who cares whether we can afford the empire, in some purely economic sense, especially if - purely as an hypothetical, inasmuch as in the actually-existing universe, this would be impossible - we abolished the welfare state? The question is whether there is any necessity of maintaining 700-800 garrisons in 144 countries & etc. And there is not.

Bait and switch, Maximos? Those garrisons are immaterial to other, larger questions of military spending like nuclear weapons, maintaining ground force equipment, the size of the US Navy and maintaining military IT infrastructure. In past comments, I've made clear my opposition to those garrisons, but again, those garrisons are more of a footnote, than an actual serious issue, to the cost of running the modern military.

Maintaining a credible, well-armed, non-imperial self-defense force would still require several hundred billion a year to cover all of the costs. You cannot avoid that.

And as I said, you are focusing on a single, diseased tree in a forest that is on fire when you focus on the DoD as a budget-breaker. If there is any part of the federal government that is likely to harm the public it is the welfare state which is threatening my generation with abject ruin if we honor the debt it has and is creating.