I just wrote this memo on personnel spending and the military.  Here’s the gist:

It’s not surprising that weapons systems draw all the attention when defense spending reform comes up. They translate into jobs that defense contractors spread cunningly across the nation’s states and congressional districts. But the “guns versus butter” debates between liberals and conservatives miss a key point. It’s not just weapons that drive defense spending through the roof — it’s the people, too.

According to its official budget, the Defense Department will spend $533.8 billion in 2010 in the following categories:

• Personnel: $136 billion
• Operations & Maintenance: $185.7 billion
• Weapons Procurement: $107.4 billion
• Research & Development for Weapons and Technology: $78.6 billion
• Other: $26.1 billion

The personnel figure, however, doesn’t come close to capturing what America is really spending on defense personnel. According to PPI’s calculations, the real price tag is much bigger: $301.1 billion each year, 121 percent higher than the Pentagon’s figure. In other words, if you want major savings in defense spending, cutting weapons systems and the ever-elusive “waste, fraud and abuse” won’t take you far enough.

In a February address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama promised to “cut Cold War weapons systems we don’t use.” By signing today’s $680billion defense authorization bill, it’s remarkable at how well he succeeded.

Trimmed from the budget are more F-22s fighter jets, VH-71 presidential helicopters, and Air Force search-and-rescue helicopters.  In short, we own an acceptable quantity and/or quality of these systems to achieve their stated missions, freeing money money that could more efficiently be spent elsewhere.  The simple message comes down to this:  In the middle of two major military deployments, spending on weapons we don’t need makes America weaker because we’re short-changing those involved in our current fights.

The president has made a solid first step in breaking the iron triangle of defense contractors, congress, and the Pentagon.  However, the war is hardly over.  If you want to dunk your head in a buck of cold water, read Winslow Wheeler’s reality check- he quite compellingly argues that:

In 30 years on Capitol Hill, I never saw Congress mangle the defense budget as badly as this year. Despite that, I see signs that we might be on the cusp of a change for the better.

This past week, as the Senate debated the Department of Defense (DOD) appropriations bill, a tiny bipartisan group of senators stood up to fix an important part of the gigantic mess in our defenses. This minuscule bunch lost at every turn when the votes were counted, but for the first time I can remember, senators revealed previously unrecognized aspects of their colleagues’ appalling pork-mongering — and took action against it. In the process, a few supremely powerful senators who have been corrupting the process were exposed as contemptible frauds. Now, if only the press would notice.

The issue at hand is a new tactic in budgetary slight-of-hand.  Sens. Inouye (D-HI) and Cochran (R-MS) have lead a group of Senators in raiding the “Operations and Maintenance” account - a little-noticed fund that pays for things like pilot training and basic equipment up-keep - to pay for home-state weapons projects that even the military says it doesn’t want.

Reforming the weapons acquisition culture is like turning an aircraft carrier 180 degrees.  The White House and Secretary Gates have started, but the next several Pentagon budgets will show us where we really are.

My erstwhile co-author Josh Tucker penned a cogent piece for RealClearWorld today on the Russian missile shield.  Here’s his point:

So the bottom line is as follows: (1) it is unclear how these interceptors would have improved U.S. national security; (2) it is unclear how the interceptors would have improved the security of American allies in Eastern Europe; (3) they would have been expensive (note Obama’s mention of “cost-effectiveness” in his statement on the matter); (4) we don’t know if they would have worked (note Obama’s emphasis on the effectiveness of his proposed alternative); and (5) they would have continued to provide a serious impediment to improving U.S.-Russian relations. …

But let’s be clear: this is not a costless decision. Anytime we change our minds on military commitments to allies, there are costs down the road for doing so. Both Poland and the Czech Republic have born serious costs in order to move this plan along with their own populations — neither of which were uniformly enthusiastic about these proposals, especially in the Czech Republic. I would hope the administration would take damage control in this regard very seriously….

Finally, it is important not to overestimate the effect of this decision on U.S.-Russian relations. Yes, this will remove a thorn from that relationship, and an important thorn at that. And it is possible that we may even see some reciprocal move on Russia’s part in terms of ratcheting up pressure on Iran in the coming days; there have long been indications that such a deal might be possible.

… The Russians should take comfort in the fact that the current administration is willing to listen to arguments about the value of particular policy decisions, but they should in no way take away from this an overinflated sense of Russian influence over Washington’s foreign policy.

That’s about right by me.  I like his point of emphasis on damage control - we’ve made a decision whose effects within the Polish and Czech military establishments is potentially wide-ranging.  We should expend a decent amount of energy managing that relationship, trying to assuage those countries’ governments’ level of uncomfortableness.

For example, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout said he made two concrete proposals to U.S. officials on Thursday in hopes of keeping the U.S.-Czech alliance strong: for the U.S. to establish a branch of West Point for NATO members in Central Europe and to “send a Czech scientist on the U.S. space shuttle to the international space station.” Those requests should be taken seriously.

While we’re talking about me in the meeeedja (as a certain rappa from Staines would say), I went on FoxNews last week and absolutely tore up this poor girl from the Heritage Foundation.  She was obviously ill-equipped to deal with my superior intellect.

Conservatives absolutely love European missile defense.  Why?  My theory is that it brings them to a happy place, one full of stuffed dolls of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and plastic Millenium Falcons.  Yup, the European missile defense program was a vestige of the Cold War, when conservatives’ gripon national security strategy was tightest.  Why else would the Bush administration have worked so hard to ensure that we had invested so much in the system that it’d be dang near impossible to back away?

So you’ll forgive them if they’re not exactly ready to give it up.  Take House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), for example:

The Administration’s misguided action will cause our eastern European allies to question our commitment to their people and security, while heightening concerns in Israel. The European deployment is the only system that can protect both the U.S. and Europe against the common threat of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them.

Yet Cantor’s statement is just the latest example of how out-of-touch Republicans are with America’s national security needs in the 21st century.

I know it can be counter-intuitive to claim that we’re making America stronger by removing a missile shield.  At first glance, it doesn’t make obvious sense.

The most important thing to remember is that we’re actually improving our missile defense capabilities.  Instead of the land-based, costly, behind-schedule, outmoded system in Europe, the Obama administration is set to emphasize a more accurate, cheaper, near-term, next wave sea-based system.  When comparing the two, think of the choice this way:

If you were going to buy a security system for your house, would you rather spend $1000 on a system that catches 50 percent of the criminals and doesn’t start working until next year, or one that costs $800, catches 80 percent, and starts working next week?

The choice seems easy, right?  Though greatly simplyfied, it isn’t terribly different from the obvious choice the White House just made on the unanimous recommendation from the Defense establishment.

Diplomatically, the choice is also a win-win for a stronger American security.  While the conservative cabal excessively worry about upsetting our Eastern European allies while groveling to Russia.  Take House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH):

“Scrapping the US missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe,”

Or does it?  While it’s true that there may be some bruised egos in Warsaw and Prague, our relationships with our Eastern European allies is steadfast.  How can I be so confident?  Look no further that the NATO Treaty’s article 5, which states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all.  That’s the very same article that NATO invoked in the wake of 9/11.

Even better, guess who’s a member of NATO?  If you said Poland and the Czech Repbulic, DING DING, Vanna has some lovely gifts for you.

Furthermore, moving missile defense to a sea-based element removes an unnecessary thorn in the side of US-Russia relations, and helps put Russia in our corner when negotiating with Iran.  Russia’s help isn’t guaranteed, but if it’s possible to have Russia pressure Iran with no adverse effects on our national security, then it’s a no-brainer.

Just like this entire situation:  Conservatives need to wake up to the fact that the Cold War is over and America’s national security needs in 2009 are very different from just twenty years ago.

A new Washington Post/ABC poll finds that 51 percent of Americans believe that the costs of fighting in Afghanistan outweigh the benefits.  It’s a staggering number.  Once you account for statical error, it’s safe to say that about half of this country has forgotten the reverberating costs of September 11, 2001.

First, it is vital that we remember why we’re in Afghanistan.  While President Bush had a grand vision of bringing democracy and prosperity to the Afghan people, President Obama realized that Bush’s vision was impossible to achieve.  President Obama has redefined America’s goals in the region, saying during the 2008 campaign that, “Our critical goal should be to make sure that the Taliban and al Qaida are routed and that they cannot project threats against us from that region.” Once he became Commander-in-Chief, Obama reiterated that approach:

I can articulate some very clear, minimal goals in Afghanistan, and that is that we make sure that it’s not a safe haven for al-Qaida, they are not able to launch attacks of the sort that happened on 9/11 against the American homeland or American interest.

In other words, our mission in Afghanistan is clearly linked to preventing the re-occurance of a massive terrorist attack.

With that in mind, it’s worth reviewing the costs of those attacks to remind the American people why we’re trying to prevent another attack.

First, a few numbers:

– 2,973 individuals were killed in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA.

– In the year following the attacks, the New York City Comptroller’s office estimated that 146,000 jobs were lost.

– In the year following the attacks, the New York City Comptroller’s office estimated that the total economic impact on the city was $94.8 billion, including personal wealth, lost wages, rebuilding costs, and others.

– In the three days after the attack, the Federal Reserve injected $300 billion into the economy in various forms.  They were actions that were “essential to cushioning the terrorist effects on the economy.”

– The Congressional Research Service found long-term negative economic effects as per capital real income growth would slow.

It’s well-and-good to break down the attacks’ effect in cold, stark numbers, but it’s also worth remembering the price we paid in other ways:

– Recall the emotional trauma you - as someone possibly hundreds if not thousands of miles away with no direct connection to the tragedy - experienced to understand what happened and why?

– Remember how our key aspects of infrastructure were blocked?  And that life didn’t return to normal for months?

– Remember how the Bush administration undertook highly questionable security measures like torture in the name of national security?

– Remember how the Bush administration quickly turned a moment that should have sponsored national unity into one that leaned heavily on the politics of fear?

– Or remember how the Bush administration pivoted off military action in Afghanistan to gin up ultimately dubious charges against Saddam Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction?

This is hardly an exhaustive or scientific list.  Furthermore, I’m hardly saying that all of these outcomes will come to pass should another massive terrorist attack occur on American soil.  For one, I believe President Obama owes his election to presenting a decidedly different version of national security from President Bush.

However, when Americans say that they don’t believe the costs of fighting in Afghanistan outweigh the benefits, I’d say this:  Remember that we’re in Afghanistan to prevent another massive terrorist attack, and that the costs of those attacks were enormous to Americans’ lives, our economy, and our national identity.

On July 21, the Senate killed funding for extra F-22s.  This was a huge victory for the White House, and could prove to be the first chink in the armor of the Iron Triangle of defense contractors, the Pentagon, and Congress.  Or was it?

If you need a refresher, here’s how the Iron Triangle works:  Congress controls the power of the purse, and each year crafts a defense spending bill to send to the White House.  Defense contractors spread their offices, warehouses, and factories into as many Congressional districts as possible.  Their presence creates local jobs.  The military services know Congress will eagerly fund any defense project that keeps factories humming, so they request amounts of hardware in excess of what may be necessary for national security.  Contractors keep pressure on Congress through campaign contributions to make sure the services’ requests are funded.

The result is wasteful spending - Congress funds weapons in the name of local employment, and campaign contributions, and not according to our national security needs.

That’s why killing funding for the F-22 looked like such a solid win:  Speaking to a joint session of Congress in February, the President said he would veto any spending bill that continued to buy Cold War weapons systems - like the F-22 - that we didn’t need.  The White House and Pentagon kept up the pressure: we already owned 187 of the plane, we weren’t using them in Iraq or Afghanistan, even the military said it didn’t need any more.  The trick was convincing Congress not to fund more of them in a time of high unemployment.

But was the F-22 a harbinger of the defense acquisition’s future, or a hollow victory as standard weapons acquisition process continues unabated?  Writing in Defense News, Winslow Wheeler fears the latter:

Get out your pen, Mr. President; the porkers in Congress have slathered up the 2010 defense appropriations bill. Your veto threats have not fazed them in the slightest. …

The Obama administration won a titanic victory over pork in the Senate on July 21 with a lopsided 58-40 vote to kill the F-22. Reading the tea leaves, the chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., took money for the plane out of his bill. Surely, Congress’ porkers got the message; their day is done, right? Not hardly.

Murtha and the House added a lot more than the initial batch of three C-17s to get that ball rolling. They added $560 million for the second F-35 engine; $400 million to start buying the presidential helicopter (with the stove); $80 million to save the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (from Murtha’s district); and they added 1,116 other earmarks costing $2.75 billion. The Senate Appropriations Committee even made it clear the president’s F-22 victory was a way station, not an end, to the program; the committee endorsed spending, sure to be high, to modify the F-22 to enable foreign sales. Not exactly chastened, are they?

Not a peep of opposition from the president. Complete surrender. Obama is not standing in the way of pork and waste in defense bills - he is enabling it. He has a chance to get serious when the Senate takes up its version later this month. But so far, it looks like he doesn’t want to stand behind his own rhetoric and put up a real fight.

So the problems roll on.  If the F-22 is a symbolic win, then how do we reform the acquisition system to address these problems at their core?  As luck would have it, Jordan Tama wrote in Memos to the New President for the PPI on just this topic.  He proposed a weapons reform commission styled after the de-politicized Base Realignment And Closure commission to address the weapons purchasing problem because:

[E]ven a reform-minded president and secretary of defense cannot overhaul the acquisition process successfully without some buy-in from the military services and Congress. A commission’s prestigious and diverse membership, careful deliberative process, and persistent advocacy for its proposals can build support for reform among the key constituencies that are part of the acquisition process.