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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
Yes, but would it be more useful than a couple of ATV four wheelers for the tasks at hand? For search and rescue, I can’t image any kind of armored vehicle is going to be more useful — let alone economical — than something lighter and faster. If it’s intended more for SWAT situations (which this article states) … well, do those happen in New Glasgow?
I’d feel much better about this sort of thing if they were shown to fit a specific need, rather than accepted with a “Hey, you never know… and free stuff!” attitude. That said, I agree that the problem would be significantly diminished by a bright paint job.
BTW, love Nova Scotia. We honeymooned in Blomidon, and want to do more exploring up there.
Sell it, scrap it or park it in the desert but don’t give it away. Requiring it to be sold to state or local governments will put something of a test on whether or not the that government entity has a real need.
Throw it all into the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Not really paying for it “twice”….if the federal government sells it to a municipality, the federal government then gets the revenue.
Eek.
Not the image I’d want to convey, but that’s just me.
Regarding “How does Congress decide which countries are worthy of receiving the equipment?”
This call–as most (all?) of Congress’s decisions–is essentially a political decision. Congress–as it always does–will just make that call as it pleases in exchange for whatever political heat that attracts.
Regarding, whether I expect to agree with Obama if he decided which country got used U.S. military gear for free?
Based on Obama’s demonstrated decision-making prowess, I doubt it. It would just be another lesson in “Elections have consequences.”
Regarding, “Congress ensure that the equipment doesn’t fall into the hands of America’s enemies?”
Congress cannot ensure this because–like the rest of us–it cannot accurately predict the future. Question: how did our enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran, obtain F4 Phantom Jets? Answer: because the U.S. sold them to her then ally, the Shah of Iran, before the Islamists overthrew him.
Put another way, this is just another judgment call that our elected leaders must make with inadequate information.
Commentary: Misthiocracy posed an number of questions that essentially pointed out the foreseeable risks with the various choices for disposing of military gear.
One way that bad leaders paralyze themselves from acting is by being too risk-adverse. By definition, a complex problem is only complex because all of the apparently solutions have some downside. In contrast , a problem with an solution that has no apparent downsides is “a no-brainer.” But the President doesn’t get to solve no-brainers because all of these easier problems are handled lower in the hierarchy; he gets the wicked problems that defied resolution at lower levels.
As with all other political decisions, the politicians must balance foreseeable costs, risks and political risk to their own careers so as to make a decision. and then throw the dice.
Put Scooby Doo above it and Santa Claus behind it and you’ve got yourself a family memory.
My favorite fighter of all time was the Grumman F-6 Hellcat, which wiped the Japanese Zeros from the skies during WWII. So hopeless was it for a Zero to venture into combat against the Hellcats, that the Zeros were converted into Kamikaze bombs. (There’s a point here, and I’m getting to it.)
At the end of the war, with no particular use for the Hellcats on the horizon, the Navy simply shoved them off the decks of the carriers and let them sink into the ocean.
Oh, how I would have loved to be able to buy one of those sweet planes (without the guns, of course). Some of them were saved for museums and barnstorming shows, thank God. Take a look at one, if your aerospace museum has one on display. (San Diego has one.) And think of those rusting hulks on the bottom of the ocean. Ouch. Let’s not be too quick to scrap our military equipment.
The cops need to have similar or better equipment to what the criminals have. Lots of police officer died especially in the 1970s because they didn’t have good enough firepower to what the criminals had. Organized drug cartels especially in the border states made the need for the SWAT and better.
While we’re (loosely) on the topic of Canadians with armored vehicles, there was an incident just last week where a SWAT team in Saskatoon used their armored vehicle to rescue a woman and several children who were hunkered behind a car, pinned down by a barricaded gunman. The vehicle was hit by several rounds.
I’m pretty sure that woman and her kids didn’t much care what color it was painted.
Could you provide a recent example or two of where police were severely outgunned? Both the Miami and the North Hollywood shootouts were a long time ago, and the average police sidearm has a lot more firepower than was available to officers when those events happened.
I’m also not sure I’ve seen anyone object to officers having access to carbines or full-sized rifles, though most probably don’t need one on them at all times.
I’m unaware of any drug gangs in the US using MRAPs, or any other model armored vehicle, for that matter.
Davis-Monthan AFB probably has a few left.
I was thinking of the North Hollywood Shootout (couldn’t remember the exact details). I guess I don’t consider 17 years ago all that long ago.
As for MRAPs I can think of an actual scenario where it might have been useful. There was a illegal pot farm that was rigged with IEDs and other traps.
If that’s the case, send in the National Guard to clear the scene. Law enforcement can follow up.
Seawriter
Would that not violate the Posse Comitatus Act?
Perhaps not, but the vehicle in question wasn’t a tank. Also, the Saskatoon police refer to it as a “Rescue Vehicle”, illustrating that they understand the importance of perception.
Also, like New Glasgow, Saskatoon is in a pretty remote n’ rugged part of the country. I can see their Bearcat being very useful when a case takes them off-road.
In other words, context is everything,
ON THE OTHER HAND: Apparently Saskatoon didn’t get their Bearcat for free. They paid nearly $400,000 for it. I’m far more comfortable with the free vehicles than I am with police departments spending that kind of money on armoured vehicles when it could arguably be put to a better use elsewhere.
No, it wasn’t a tank, but a surplus MRAP is also not a tank. And frankly, pretty much none of the vehicles that rubber-bullet pseudojournalists have spent the last few weeks calling “tanks” are actually tanks. And recently there has been no shortage of rhetoric saying there is no reason police should ever have such vehicles available to them.
I take your point about calling it a “rescue vehicle”. It’s not a bad idea, and a lot of agencies already do this. It just seems to me that terminology and paint colors are pretty small beer in the “militarization” debate, which already expends too much energy on aesthetic concerns.
A Bearcat like Saskatoon’s is definitely more expensive than a surplus MRAP, but it’s easier to service and better suited to the precise mission. Surplus MRAPs are preferable only due to their low (initial) cost.
No. Unless nationalized by the President, National Guard units are considered state entities, If the governor calls out the state’s National Guard, it is under state control. The Posse Comitatus act only affects Federal troops, so Guard units under state control can be used for riot control or police activities requiring military response.
It is one of the blessings of federalism.
(I suppose things could get fuzzier if a President, wishing to deny a governor the ability to use the Guard in that manner nationalized a state’s National Guard units, but at least in Texas there is both a Texas National Guard and a Texas State Guard, with the Texas State Guard outside the control of the Federal Government.)
Seawriter
I think aesthetic concerns are quite important when discussing police effectiveness.
Police cannot be effective without public support, and public support depends on more than simply police effectiveness. It also depends on how the police interacts with the public and present themselves to the public. That means aesthetics matter.
For example, dig this vehicle being used by Staffordshire police in England (albeit as a community outreach vehicle, not for operations, I do have to admit):
Now, imagine that same vehicle painted gunmetal grey and driven by a SWAT member in full black gear. It’d have a totally different effect.
Source: http://www.agriland.ie/news/uk-police-get-tractor-power-right-rural-crime/