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What Should Happen To Surplus Military Equipment?
If local police forces should not receive surplus military equipment, what should happen to it instead?
Should the military sell it all for scrap, even when it’s relatively new and perfectly usable?
Should the military sell it to any individual willing to pay the price? Tanks in the hands of private citizens? How do you keep it out of the hands of foreign arms dealers?
Should the military keep it in storage, perhaps at high cost, if it’s to be kept in working condition?
Should the US give (or sell at a discount) to foreign allies? What if they don’t want it?
Should the US give (or sell at a discount) to strategically-important foreign countries, like Iraq for example? What if it falls into the hands of the enemy? What if they turn around and become an enemy?
Image Credit: Flickr user Herald Post.
Published in General
They should sell it at a profit, buyer largely irrelevant.
Sell it (or donate it) to Israel and Ukraine.
If you could just dye it blue, most of these complaints would go away. That camo color freaks people out.
FYI: What’s my personal opinion, I hear you asking?
I don’t mind military equipment going to first-responders, especially in rural areas. An armored personnel carrier might be useful for search-and-rescue in a very rugged area, for example.
There’s a story up here in Canuckistan complaining that the New Glasgow Police in Nova Scotia received a surplus APC from the Canadian military. New Glasgow is a very small town, with a population of less than 10,000. Why should they need a “tank”?
On the other hand, New Glasgow is in a very remote and rugged part of the country. I can totally imagine that a six-wheeled personnel carrier (with all the armaments removed) could potentially be very useful in that situation.
My real problem is more with black “military-style” uniforms, and military-grade equipment, being used as standard police equipment. SWAT teams are a “good” thing, when used properly. The fear is that forces are forgetting that the “s” stands for “special”. i.e. unusual, non-standard, infrequent, non-average, etc… I’m skeptical that the average cop on the beat should look like, or be equipped like, a SWAT member.
How does Congress decide which countries are worthy of receiving the equipment?
Imagine if President Obama had been the one to make the decision of which countries get the loot. Do you imagine that you’d agree with his choices?
How does Congress ensure that the equipment doesn’t fall into the hands of America’s enemies?
Imagine that US military equipment had been sold or given to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian military had stored it in Crimea so now it’s in the hands of Russia.
I’m sympathetic to this idea.
The New Glasgow APC would be way less scary if it was painted in bright search-and-rescue colours instead of gunmetal grey.
In the “good ol’ days”, for example, Toronto police cars were painted the same yellow colour as school buses. The idea was that cop cars should be more visible than civilian cars, especially during high-speed chases:
It should go to the various state guards and national guards. I can guarantee
either the Texas National Guard or the Texas State Guard could make better use of MRAPs than say . . . the League City Police Department. The various guard units can sell their still older equipment.
Seawriter
Taxpayers already paid for it. How about a lottery to give it back? I always wanted a deuce and a half to pick up groceries and the occasional landscaping supplies. :)
Ricochet corporate wheels, of course.
There are lots of clever people who can modify military vehicles for all sorts of applications.
The HumVee is the obvious example. That’s been used as regular transportation, a local pizza place used to use one for pizza delivery, and they’ve been stretched into limos.
The WWII amphibious vehicles are used for Duck Tours in coastal cities.
I’m sure there are lots of potential farming and construction applications.
Yabbut, who’s gonna get the bill to convert all those private APCs into hybrids?
;-)
The federal government doesn’t give these away for free. taxpayers have to pay once more for a machine they bought in the first place. Then increased costs for maintenance, upkeep, and training are accrued.
In the following order:
1. Give them to the National Guard.
2. Sell them to a select list of allies.
3. Reduce funding to the UN and provide this equipment instead.
4. Scrap them.
Give/sell to National Guard.
Just saw Bob’s List #12. Yes he has the right of it.
I like it, but I’d be worried about the UN passing it along to bad actors.
I’d also add non-police first-responders at the state level, like search-and-rescue and firefighting. Of course, that would often fall under the jurisdiction of Sheriff’s departments, so it’s tricky.
I do not have a problem with the police having surplus gear. My problem comes when they start driving APCs through the front of the wrong buildings without bothering to knock.
Ex. A few years back a family member of mine ran into some issue with the law. The law did not bother to tell us there was a possible issue but we heard about it anyway (small town). We contracted our lawyer that contacted the prosecuting attorney. Prosecutor indicated he did not think the issue would go anywhere and agreed if it did he would contact us so family member could surrender to authorities if necessary. A week later a 15 man SWAT team in full battle rattle kicks in my 80 + year old grandmothers door and extracts family member in time for the live perp walk on the 11pm news. Grandma had a stroke a week later.
My problem is not the gear, my problem is this attitude that seems to go with LEOs playing amature wannabe warriors that seems to be related to the gear. I think many others feel the same.
I say give them to the smaller, more obscure local unregulated militias. Set them up for a conflict with the vaneer of a fair fight against the “Feds”. Could be a reality show in here somewhere. Maybe the first round could pit NOAA enforcement agianst the North-east regional New Mexico Free-thinkers.
I just have a hard time understanding where and when and APC would be helpful for S&R or firefighting. If there is a compelling enough reason that justifies the expense of having an APC, I guess I wouldn’t mind.
Well, if they got the machine for free and only had to pay for maintenance, it might be cheaper than buying one of these:
If you painted these vehicles gunmetal grey and wrote “POLICE” on the side, they’d be scary as heck! Paint ’em red or orange with “RESCUE” on the side, and they’d be a miraculous vision to a lost hiker.
The issue is not what to do with surplus military equipment, that’s a matter that has a long pedigree of solutions. Besides, given Obama’s paring of the DOD budget the Pentagon better hold onto it for themselves.
The concern is the explosion in the number of SWAT teams in police forces and federal agencies. Not only has there been an explosion in their quantity, but a like explosion in their incident of use, with the bar being dramatically lower for using. This does not correspond with an increase in law enforcement situations requiring assault tactics. Does the Dept of Ed need an assault force? No. The Border Patrol? Yes. The militarization of the police is less about where we are now, but where we’ll be before too long, given the trends and human (and bureaucratic) nature.
Yeah, these toys look like a lot of fun. I’d love to own some of that heavy metal and romp around my back woods with it. But I’m not a law enforcement officer, I can be a little cowboy. They can’t.
Yes, SWAT forces are needed. Yes, there are too many now. Yes, some military surplus can find a good home with various first responders. Though right now it seems it should be given to Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states.
An honest assessment of the situation shows that the problem is the dramatic lowering of the bar for using assault equipment/tactics by law enforcement officials.
Furthermore, one reason we have so much surplus now, is that Obama has brought our armed forces to pre-WWII levels. That’s a lot of perfectly good equipment that recently had soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen using it. Do you really think we’re going to be able to remain at these force levels for long?
No.
Thanks to the imbecile in the White House the likelihood of a messy, ugly, bloody war — like we’ve never seen before — within the next decade is now over 50/50 IMHO.
Our troops are soon going to be increasing in number very rapidly, no matter whether Rand Paul, Hillary, Scott Walker, or John Bolton is President in 2017. Events will dictate it.
We will need this heavy metal again…soon.
Maybe the agreements with the police departments include a clause requiring that the equipment be returned in case of war?
Yeah. It’s incidents like this that concern me — a serious law & order type with plenty of friends in blue. One solution might be to remove sovereign immunity for all those involved, including in the decision-making chain for such action. A couple of ugly tort/wrongful death actions on them as individuals and their force would put some discretion in their thinking.
If it can be found. I suspect a fair amount will go missing.
I know that the President would never give it to Israel; I was just hoping that any lefties passing through would read that and have an aneurysm. (Although it’s a good suggestion.)
Sorry for running off on a tangent — super post and all — but I had to thank you this clip from Strange Brew. I can hear my 12 year-old self saying, “Take off, you hoser,” (that’s CoC compliant, right?) and it is cracking me up. I went to summer camp in Maine with a lot of Canadians, and the movie became one big inside summertime joke. Thanks for reminding me.
Still hilarious, eh?
If it isn’t, it should be.
Firstly, the earliest recorded use of the term “hoser” actually comes from Bob & Doug Mackenzie, and they used it to refer to each other, so any Canadian who takes offense at the word is truly an imbecile.
Secondly, while opinions vary and there’s no definitive etymology, it’s believed in some rarefied circles that the word refers to the poor kid who wasn’t cool enough to be on the hockey team so his job was to flood (or hose) the local hockey rink. Sorta like the equipment manager or the waterboy for a football or baseball team.
It’s really hard to insult a Canadian, since the most common slurs (hoser, canuck, etc.) were invented by Canadians as terms of endearment.
Just … don’t … ever … accuse … me … of … coming … from … Toronto. I’d hafta crank ya right in the mind.
I know exactly one person who lives in Toronto. He’s a CoC non-compliant word.
Paint them pink and use them to raise awareness for breast cancer. They would an awesome addition to race for the cure walks.
Visibility was a major factor in the design of the Northwest Mounted Police‘s distinctive Red Serge uniforms, too. Today, the Red Serge is reserved for dress occaisions, but for decades it was the workaday uniform of the NWMP.
Cops being instantly recognizable as cops used to be considered a Good Thing.
I think the Kurds could use some of it right now. I would also echo those who have mentioned giving some of it to the Border Patrol. There are Mexican guerillas taking shots at Border Patrol Agents. It would be nice to lob some shells back at them, especially since Mexico’s President is too busy telling us to allow the colonization of various places like Texas and Arizona rather than solving problems in his own country.