[Peace-discuss] Cato: Will the tea tempest storm the Pentagon?

[Robert Naiman]

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20101104_Will_the_tea_tempest_storm_the_Pentagon_.html

Posted on Thu, Nov. 4, 2010

Will the tea tempest storm the Pentagon?

Some hawks are getting defensive about the budget.

By Christopher Preble and John Samples

With a number of tea party-backed candidates victorious and on their
way to Washington, there is much speculation about how they might
affect foreign policy. "It's hard to divine because they haven't
articulated clear views," explains James Lindsay of the Council on
Foreign Relations. "We are left wondering: What exactly would they
do?"

The tea party movement has no clear foreign policy agenda. It seems
unlikely, however, that the same tea partyers who want the U.S.
government to do less at home are anxious to do more everywhere else.

For example, the movement and its new representatives in Washington
might prefer to avoid sending U.S. forces into unnecessary and futile
wars. Accordingly, they might also realize that substantial reductions
in military spending are strategically wise, fiscally prudent, and
politically necessary.

The mere prospect that the incoming congressional class will cut
military spending has some Beltway insiders manning the ramparts. Last
month, Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute, William
Kristol of the Weekly Standard, and Ed Feulner of the Heritage
Foundation joined forces in a Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that
military spending "is neither the true source of our fiscal woes, nor
an appropriate target for indiscriminate budget-slashing in a
still-dangerous world."

It's absurd to argue that there's no room for cuts. The Pentagon's
budget has grown nearly 86 percent in real terms since 1998.

Ever-rising military spending is partly explained by the fact that its
advocates - the individuals, companies, and politicians who depend on
military projects - are highly motivated and adept at maintaining the
status quo. These special interests have a right to fight in the
American political system, but Beltway hawks should not enjoy a
presumption that military spending necessarily advances national
security. Much of it does not.

The nation needs to reconsider its overarching national security
strategy as a first step toward limiting military spending. It's
appropriate that we spend money on our military to defend Americans
against foreign threats to our lives, liberty, or property. But we
spend much more than is necessary for our own security because
Washington has chosen to defend other countries that are capable of
defending themselves.

The challenge is to rethink what we want the military to do before we
start cutting its budget. To make cuts without reviewing our strategic
aims would only impose more burdens on our fighting men and women and
their families.

But with a more focused foreign policy, such cuts would make sense
even if this were an era of surpluses. And in a time when overall
spending has to be cut, the Pentagon's budget needs to be on the
table.

The next Congress is likely to go after domestic spending and
entitlements, which will be reflexively defended by its left-leaning
members. If the tea party is serious about restraining federal
spending, the candidates the movement helped elect are going to have
to compromise with liberals and moderates. The Pentagon's budget
cannot be held sacrosanct in those negotiations.

Given their attention to fiscal realities and our government's
constitutional obligations, tea partyers are particularly well-suited
to lead a movement for more foreign policy restraint and put a brake
on global adventurism and massive military spending - hence the
preemptive shot across their bow by a few Washington think-tankers.

Will the tea party's candidates side with the Washington consensus
when they move inside the Beltway? Or will they stay true to their
small-government principles and remind Washington insiders that the
Constitution provides for "the common defence" of ourselves and our
posterity, not of the entire world? We will find out soon enough.

Christopher Preble is director of foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute, where John Samples is director of the Center for
Representative Government.

-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

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