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  Future Military and Defense Spending

www.witold.org/photos/ washington/fbiv1.html

       The United States has expended vast resources upon the development of weapons and maintenance of weapons equipment. However, much of the resources expended upon these ends are unnecessary and improper for the future of warfare. As David Sandmann has shown, the existing technology for which the United States spends billions annually is largly inadequate to combating the modern threats to the United States. In order to effectively combat the future threats to the United States, we must focus upon improving the already existing armed forces to better adapt to modern warfare. Additionally, more efforts must be made towards understanding the circumstances of the conflicts we are involved in. Finally, a reorganization of the structure of our own native defense system must take place.

     First, we must realize our own supremacy and how that draws harm toward us. “We are the last-man-standing superpower. No other nation or combination of nations can seriously threaten the existence of the United States,” (1) Clancy, a writer of fictional and nonfictional military works, writes of our current situation. Yet despite this, our armed forces are comparatively slow and lacking mobility. The time required to mount an overseas deployment is not sufficiently fast enough to effectively counter threats in the modern world. Dunnigan, an advisor to the State Department, CIA, and Naval Post Graduate School, provides a solution to this:  “Synchronization--the aligning of military operations to produce a smoothness of action--is a deliberate attempt to find out what aspects of running a combat unit slow down the flow of information and order.” (2) By altering the armed services to advance in the field of mobility and cutting the funding for stationary defenses, a more efficient use of funds can be found. The problem of slow reaction time and an non-streamlined military can be solved by the reorganization of the military. Such aspects such as structure and communication are vital to these future improvements. This will solve the long standing problems of, “high-speed warfare [which] are control and coordination, and they have been known for a long, long time.” (2) An example of a solution to this problem was General Tony Zinni's response to the terrorist attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, General Tony Zinni remarks that, at the time, his “immediate priority…was to reshape our strategy in the light of...the emerging global strategy…we needed a structure, a horizon, and goals to meet the many challenges in this most risky part of the world (Middle East).” (1) It is important for the United States to focus again upon quality, and not quantity. “Your average fighter-bomber still doesn’t have the whiz-bang fire-control systems that got so much attention during the Gulf War…less than 20 percent of Western aircraft have them.” (2) The large percentage of the U.S. armed forces is being maintained although they are not up to specs, so to speak.

     Another aspect of the future of actual field warfare will be the importance of logistics and supply. During World War Two, the ratio of combat to logistics personnel was measured in tooth-to-tail. In “the Russian army’s…tooth-to-tail ratio was nearly one to one.” The, “United States, had a lot larger tail, the tail outnumbering the tooth by more than three to one…the final argument against the lean tail was the huge noncombatant losses the Russians took. It was also pointed out that the Japanese had an even leaner tooth-to-nail ratio than the Russians, and suffered even heavier privation losses.” (2) By streamlining transportation and logistical support lines, military personnel can but cut down to a fraction of their current number, resulting in reduced costs and a less cumbersome military machine.

     Dunnigan comments further on the issue of quality over quantity. “Weapons have always been less decisive than the skill of the troops. This has been true throughout history and is still true today.” (2) And on technology he says that, “it’s easier to get money for the ships and airplanes, but these have become so expensive that we can, literally, not afford many of them.” “Weapons technology will only win some kinds of wars. High-tech weapons weren’t much help in places like Somalia or Vietnam, where leadership and diplomacy were more important.” (2)

     The future of the military must rely as much upon intelligence as well as strength. In any operation, there must be goals that are, “objectives for establishing new relationships, improving regional stability, and countering emerging threats.” Zinni writes. (1) The general goes on to say, “Our engagement goals were designed to build strong security relationships and allied capabilities, and to enhance the education of military leaders and allied capabilities,” Zinni explains. (1) For instance, the United States has to realize the cultural differences of other regions. Zinni explains the nature of Middle Eastern diplomatic meetings. “They [Arabs] don’t jump directly into the ‘big issues’; they prefer a far more casual mix…and not because they don’t understand the issues…personal relations and trust built out of friendship are more important than just signing paper agreements…In time they’ll work their way toward the business at hand and deal with it. But don’t try to rush them.” General Tony Zinni writes. (1) With this understanding, the United States can reduce its excess spending, as fewer resources will be expended upon the military and more on the less costly art of diplomacy.

     The final reform that will be both more efficient and thus more cost effective—as it can easily supplement the high costs of current spending on obsolete technology—is the investment of money into the reform of internal security services as per the 9/11 Commission Report. “The concern about the FBI is that it has long favored its criminal justice mission over its national security mission.” (3) To remedy this, the Commission recommends “A specialized and integrated national security workforce should be established at the FBI consisting of agents, analysts, linguists and surveillance specialists.” (3) “FBI agents and analysts in the field need to have sustained support and dedicated resources to become stronger intelligence officers. They need to be rewarded for acquiring informants and for gathering and disseminating information differently and more broadly than usual in traditional criminal investigations.” (3) By implementing these reforms, although it will entail new costs, will allow for a greater web of security to protect our nation without entailing the atrocious costs of maintaining battleships and nuclear submarines that are largely obsolete in the modern type of warfare.