Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
For once, I agree with every word in a column by David Brooks:
In a democracy, voters get what they want, so the line tracing federal health care spending looks like the slope of a jet taking off from LaGuardia. Medicare spending is set to nearly double over the next decade. This is the crucial element driving all federal spending over the next few decades and pushing federal debt to about 250 percent of G.D.P. in 30 years....
Oswald Spengler didn’t get much right, but he was certainly correct when he told European leaders that they could either be global military powers or pay for their welfare states, but they couldn’t do both.
Europeans, who are ahead of us in confronting that decision, have chosen welfare over global power. European nations can no longer perform many elemental tasks of moving troops and fighting. As late as the 1990s, Europeans were still spending 2.5 percent of G.D.P. on defense. Now that spending is closer to 1.5 percent, and, amid European malaise, it is bound to sink further.
The United States will undergo a similar process. The current budget calls for a steep but possibly appropriate decline in defense spending, from 4.3 percent of G.D.P. to 3 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office....
Chuck Hagel has been nominated to supervise the beginning of this generation-long process of defense cutbacks. If a Democratic president is going to slash defense, he probably wants a Republican at the Pentagon to give him political cover, and he probably wants a decorated war hero to boot....
How, in short, will Hagel supervise the beginning of America’s military decline?
The Europeans, of course, had us to defend them.
Whom do we have?
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Apr '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Peter Robinson
The Europeans, of course, had us to defend them.
Whom do we have? · · 1 minute ago
Texas!
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Valiuth
Peter Robinson
The Europeans, of course, had us to defend them.
Whom do we have? · · 1 minute ago
Texas! · 0 minutes ago
Just packed my briefcase, preparing to head home feeling low. You put a smile on my face instead. Of course! As long as Texas remains Texas, all is not lost.
May '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
The Chinese will come to our defense!
Apr '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
It's over for America.
Feb '12
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Gort! Chuck barada nickto.. I fear the end is near..
Dec '12
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Now that the NHL lockout is over, Canada?
Sep '12
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Hey, at least whatever is going to happen to us, it will happen somewhere else first. America at least has the benefit of going last (of 1st world countries). Last to be defenceless. Last to have our helthcare disapear. Last for demographic decline.
We're the only ones who get to watch the consequences of our actions before they hit us.
Jul '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Union thugs?
Jul '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
General Jack D Ripper.
May '10
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Chuck Hagel has very sad looking eyes, which is appropriate for a SecDec.
Apr '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Peter Robinson
Valiuth
Peter Robinson
The Europeans, of course, had us to defend them.
Whom do we have? · · 1 minute ago
Texas! · 0 minutes ago
Just packed my briefcase, preparing to head home feeling low. You put a smile on my face instead. Of course! As long as Texas remains Texas, all is not lost. · 1 hour ago
Glad to help.
I read this article earlier today too and I admit like you I was astonished at the fact I actually agreed with a David Brooks column. I am also amazed at his candor. The question is will most Americans have the realization that you had? I have the sad feeling though that 52% of us won't think to hard about it.
Ultimately in lieu of Pax Americana I think we will have another age of bloody wars and shifting borders. I think when the US or the EU are forced to back down from some petty local tyrant like an Assad people will begin to question our defense draw down. At least that is my hope. My fear is that we will just have another World War forcing a rapid remilitarization.
May '10
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Valiuth
.... The question is will most Americans have the realization that you had? I have the sad feeling though that 52% of us won't think to hard about it. ....
Well spotted.
I expect the majority of American voters to remain blissfully ignorant of this inherent contradiction between defense spending and unrestrained welfare spending. Voters will continue to demand military actions we cannot afford.
And why not? For all this talk of debt and disaster, Americans don't have to ration a thing. Life goes on as before.
National skydiving, my friends. It's a long way down. There's plenty of time to forget about the hard ground beneath us.
Jul '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Several of the hard-to-quantify effects of a DoD drawdown for DoD contractors are:
a. Unused tooling becomes scrapped or worthless (the older is gets, the more likely it is in need of replacement). Tooling is what's used to construct the metal parts that go into, well, everything.
b. Machinists and other skilled labor move to other jobs, so the knowledge about the products they used to build, and the tools they used to build them, is lost.
c. If there is a sudden need to build X part, the start-up costs are exponentially larger than they would have been had the drawdown not occurred. Meaning you are starting a build of what amounts to a brand new product, from the ground up. If you suddenly need 10,000 M2 .50 Cal guns, and you haven't built them for 3 years, the per-unit cost skyrockets. Lead times will do the same thing.
This is just surface-scratching, but there are hidden costs to a DoD drawdown that knuckleheads in political offices will never understand, nor care about. They're only interested in putting themselves back into those comfy offices when re-election time rolls around.
Nov '10
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
I still don't know why we aren't calling for real lean initiatives in every area of government, especially the military. I guarantee you'd eliminate 20% of the spending without effecting government's ability to provide its services (whether justified or not).
Dec '10
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Now you're just being silly. You know that government always trims the worst place first to make it as painful as possible on the citizenry in order to extract more property from us with which to bribe us for support.
Dec '10
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
What scares me most is that we are still the premier nuclear power in the world. Yes, we spend more on defense than the next 15 countries, but our spending is the only reason others don't spend so much. As we draw down our defense spending either the world becomes even more unstable, or some other nation expands their spending to fill the void. Either scenario increases the possibility that we will one day achieve the desparation required to use our nukes.
Jan '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Make Chuck the Cut Czar.
May '10
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
Who will defend us? The Presidents Own Unicorn-Mounted Leprechaun regiment of course.
Either that or the sheer radiance of President Obama's countenance and eloquence of his speeches will do it.
Mar '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
As usual, Jay Nordlinger has the best take on this - the majority of US voters chose decline, so this appointment is to be expected.
Apr '11
Re: Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Decline
As our military shrinks in size other countries will correctly feel they have more freedom to operate. This tendency will be exacerbated by President Obama’s desire to reduce our nuclear weapons. Nukes are the cheapest bang for the buck, and for the next four years we will decrease our reliance on these devices. During our drawdown, the Chinese, for example, are more likely to contemplate military solutions to the islands which provide bases that might contain them. Expect Taiwan to become an issue as well as the various small rocks currently in the news. None of this will affect the US mainland, except insofar as our influence and control of other countries is concerned. Korea, the Philippians, and others will look to China rather than to the US. If Islam resumes the raids traditionally conducted in Europe, who will defend them? Germany and France will need to re-arm.