
The U.S. military is the most highly trained and powerful fighting force in the world. The military began with the creation of the U.S. Army in June of 1775 in order to fight Great Britain. As time went on, it grew in troop size and received increases in its budget so that it could continue to be the best. Branches were added, troop size was increased, equipment was added and updated and training became more effective. It is understandable that a large amount of money would be needed to bring the military to where it is today. The United States military is comprised of 1.3 million active duty troops, 811,000 reserve troops, and over 800 bases worldwide. This type of spending and additions can only continue for so long, and that point seems to have already passed. After 9/11, civilians wanted to see a strong military that can do what was needed overseas. This has changed over the 16 years that we have been fighting in the Middle East. Civilians aren’t seeing the progress that they expect. While the current troop size should be maintained for the purpose of combat readiness and in order to continue current operations, the budget for the U.S. military should be cut, or in the very least, redone in a manner that is more efficient.

The chart below, provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, shows exactly how much the U.S. spends in comparison to the next four highest spending countries when it comes to the military budget.

The diagram above shows the top five countries in the world based upon military expenditure. China, which is second in line to the U.S. in this area, comes up short by nearly 400 billion dollars. To break this down, I would like to look at the numbers of personnel and the type of and how much equipment each military has. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The U.S. military, which has roughly 1.3 million active personnel, is much smaller than the Chinese military’s force of 2.3 million active duty personnel. Even with the cost of having to pay for 1 million more troops than the United States, the Chinese military can just about match the number of tanks that the U.S. has. In terms of main battle tanks, China wins with 9,151 to 8,850. The U.S. controls the sea and the air with 10 aircraft carriers, 22 cruisers, 62 destroyers, 72 nuclear subs, and 3,680 aircraft. China has 1 aircraft carrier, 0 cruisers, 27 destroyers, 9 nuclear subs, and 2,571 aircraft. While the United States has more equipment in terms of numbers, it does not equate to the near 400-billion-dollar gap between the two countries. I would also like to bring up the similarities in how advanced each side is when it comes to that technology and equipment. Both sides have and are using up-to-date weapon systems. Both China and the U.S. are capable of and utilizing cyber warfare, both countries have nuclear weapons, and both have military satellites in orbit currently. 

According to SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2015, Pentagon and related spending totaled nearly 600 billion dollars. This budget is equivalent to the spending of the next seven largest military budgets combined, which includes India, the U.K., Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China. In 2017, the budget for the U.S. military is up to 773.5 billion dollars and will most likely continue to increase as time goes on. While the military spending only accounts for 4 percent of the GDP, it is still possible to cut the unnecessary spending that takes place. 

The military budget is divided amongst several different areas, which are displayed in the following chart., which was provided by the United States Government Publishing Office.

The money in the budget for the military is mostly used for operation and maintenance, personnel pay, procurement of new systems and equipment and research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E). The operations and maintenance involves the upkeep of military bases around the globe as well as the cost of their daily operations and also includes the upkeep of equipment such as tanks, planes, boats and smaller things like individual weapons, body armor and fuel for the aforementioned vehicles when transportation is involved. Paying for personnel also takes up a large part of the 580 billion dollars allotted to the military. Service members receive raises in their pay whenever they are promoted or after a certain amount of time and also receive benefits for themselves and their immediate family members. Additional funds in this category go towards hazardous duty pay, payment for injury and mental trauma, tuition assistance and allowances. The military spends and invests in new technology and systems constantly in order to be better than any potential enemies and also conducts extensive research and development in all areas such as physical fitness and battle tactics.

The U.S. military has over 800 bases around the globe, some are unused or have been closed but most of which are still owned and payed for by the government. Some base closures have occurred since 2005. In 2005, the United States Department of Defense released the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which put out the names of bases that would be closed or realigned and included Fort Gillem, Ft. McPherson, Ft. Monmouth, Ft. Monroe, Naval Station Ingleside, and Naval Station Pascagoula. Another example of this excessive spending could be shown through the U.S. Army’s number of tanks. According to an article by CNN, there are more than 2,000 M-1 Abrams tanks sitting in a depot by the Sierra Nevada range in California. They are unused because the Army already has enough tanks overseas to meet the defense needs. The Army has stated that they do not need tanks and that they would rather hold  off on repairing the current tanks or buying new ones and would instead wait three or four years for new technology to be developed. Congress has rejected this idea because the tank manufacturing industry creates over sixteen thousand jobs and eliminating those jobs would damage the economy.

As mentioned above, the U.S. military has a large lot full of tanks that are unused because there are already enough tanks overseas in order to meet the combat requirements. In an article from CNN, Travis Sharp, a member of The Center for New American Security, stated that “When a relatively conservative institution like the U.S. military, which doesn't like to take risks because risks get people killed, says it has enough tanks, I think generally civilians should be inclined to believe them." In this quote, one can see that there are some issues between Congress and the leaders of the military, which causes even more problems when it comes to areas like the budget. The generals are aware of what they need and usually want a little extra in case something fails or breaks. In the same article, lawmakers said that “If the U.S. pauses tank production and refurbishment it will hurt the nations’ industrial economy.” Members of the House sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and urged him to support the manufacture of those tanks in order to support those jobs and help the economy. In the letter, the Members of the House stated that;

“The combat vehicle industrial base is a unique asset that consists of hundreds of public and private facilities across the United States. The outlook for selling Abrams tanks to other nations appears stronger than prior years, but those sales would be inadequate to sustain the industrial base and in some cases uncertain. In light of this, modest and continued Abrams production for the Army is necessary to protect the industrial base.” 

There are several other areas that are very similar to the tank problem that was listed above. According to the Defense Logistics Agency in an article published by ABC News, nearly half of their 14 billion dollars’ worth of supplies is “unnecessary and excessive.” The same organization also notes that ammunition from as early as WWII remains unused in boxes and is occasionally disposed of and new rifles are constantly being researched and developed in order to replace the perfectly functioning rifles that are currently in use.

My thought process is nearly the exact opposite of that of Congress and is similar to that of the military commanders. I believe that while the jobs in the tank manufacturing plants are important, we are needlessly spending large sums of money on these tanks that are gathering dust and remaining unused. I believe that the solution to the tank problem would include stopping the production of tanks for a few years until new technology is developed and then producing a limited number of tanks that include that technology. But with this arises the problem that the House Members stated, which entails job loss in the tank manufacturing plants. My response to this problem would be that if the Army cut its spending in needless areas, such as buying unnecessary tanks, and used it more efficiently, jobs would open up in other areas, such as aviation or naval production. These openings could and would be filled by those same people who are no longer employed by the tank manufacturers. While some workers would lose their jobs due to a smaller demand for services, the U.S. Army could utilize the new budget to help employ them on bases as civilian staff or could shift them over to a different manufacturer that the Army would still need supplies from. Alternatively, the military and Congress would gradually transition into buying fewer tanks, meaning that the manufacturing company would have more time to ease into a smaller size. Regardless of the change, whether moving people to different companies or simply cutting numbers very slowly, the U.S. economy would most likely not fluctuate because of that gradual change.  

My proposition in response to the overwhelmingly large budget of the U.S. military is to either cut the military’s spending so that they are forced to better redefine how they spend their funds or put requirements in place that would do the same thing without cutting the budget. There are downsides to both of these propositions. If Congress were to cut the military’s budget in hopes of forcing them to spend their funds in a more efficient manner, I feel as if some of the first things that would go would be jobs of the service-members. 

Moving on to the larger picture, if the U.S. military were to cut its budget or receive restrictions, I believe that the best course of action would be to cut spending in unnecessary areas and reinvest it in other areas that need to be strengthened or would help create more jobs in the civilian sector that might be lost if the military stopped its spending on things such as tanks. According to a report by USA Today, 52 percent of soldiers across all branches remain “pessimistic about their future in the military.” Business Insider goes further into depth on this subject, bringing up research that shows that morale in the military has been declining consistently for decades. Cited in the article is a 2014 Military Times study, which states that “In 2009, 87 percent of active-duty troops who participated in Military Times’ survey rated their pay and allowances ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. This year, the figures is just 44 percent.” 70 percent of the soldiers polled said that they expected quality of life under military employment to decrease further in the future. Based upon these polls and how the soldiers reacted to the questions, I think that it would be wise to take the money spent in those unnecessary areas and put it towards the soldiers. Active duty soldiers go through situations that are very difficult and very demanding, both physically and mentally. This leads to high amounts of stress and fatigue. Soldiers in bases over in the Middle East work in conditions that are usually very poor and spend long amounts of time there. Investing money in improving living and working conditions would be very beneficial for them and would still maintain the spending that the economy has grown used to. 

A large part of the influence on soldiers to work effectively comes from their morale, and a large part of their morale stems from their compensation. Diverting funds from areas that no longer need them and putting them into improving soldier morale could be a great way to increase the cost effectiveness of the military budget. The majority of the soldiers who are fighting overseas on the front lines are enlisted and towards the lower end of the pay scale. These soldiers are the backbone of the fighting force and still receive very little pay for what they do. They cite both repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as pointing to financial compensation as the cause for their low morale. This issue can be solved if the U.S. military budget were to be re-worked and the pay for the soldiers who were working hard and accomplishing the designated mission was to be increased and their living conditions improved. In “Why We Fight: Understanding Military Participation Over the Life Cycle”, David R. Mann goes into depth on what pushes people away from and draws people in to the military. Rather than focus on the entire military, he focuses on the individual soldier. Mann states that “the number of people employed by the military varies directly with the state of the economy.” The possibilities of upcoming cuts in spending greatly affect how military personnel react to incentives. “There is a dynamic career decision model that includes military service options to understand how human capital, compensation, the business cycle, and combat risk affect the military labor supply.” (Mann) This quote from “Why We Fight” shows that there are many things that affect how many people will sign up for military service and one of these area, arguably one of the most important, is compensation. Pay will affect how service members feel about their jobs and may influence potential future service-members on whether or not to join.

I would like to end by addressing a quote from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said that “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” The meaning of “military-industrial complex” in one sense means that armed services are more interested in stable relationships with their suppliers rather than fair prices. There are times when the military and the government are more concerned with having an overwhelmingly strong and powerful military than any possible or imaginary opponent that they would spend large sums of money in order to see it happen. While we are nowhere near this point, the need to watch for this is ever present, especially with the uncertain future ahead of us and always-rising tensions with the other super powers of the world.

  