The Bottom Line On Defense Sequestration: Warfighters Will Die
07.15.2013 at 08:24pm
The Bottom Line On Defense Sequestration: Warfighters Will Die – Forbes Op-Ed by Loren Thompson.
… What the defense secretary is saying is that if defense sequestration stays on track, U.S. forces could be defeated in future wars, and more warfighters than necessary might die. Maybe thousands. Maybe tens of thousands. Why? Because the force will not be trained and equipped to the level required to prevail against technologically advanced adversaries. You know — the kind of adversaries who haven’t been challenging us lately because America’s military has the best training and technology in the world…
I remember the U.S. government has guidelines for valuing human life (of its citizen). It’s up to about nine million bucks (celebrities and rich people are worth more, of course).
That’s how much you spend at most per life you assume to save with your action in the U.S. – be it seawalls, drugs, seatbelt regulation or other policies.
This may sound cynical, but this is a world of scarcity, and paying more than these millions to save one life means to reject saving at least as many lives elsewhere, since all budgets are limited.
Now assume the doomsday claim is true and 10,000 soldiers will die within the next decade if not more is spent on the military (ignoring of course that the military bureaucracy should probably learn to spend cash more efficiently).
10,000 lives – that’s 90 billion bucks at most. For a decade. So nine billion bucks annually (ignoring interest rate effects). Assuming a bad case and the upper boundary of valuations. It could also be 4 billion and 0.4 billion using the other extremes. Or zero.
I am sure Mr. Thompson thought his “(…)thousands. Maybe tens of thousands” point would be strong enough to justify a bigger spending increase. It doesn’t – even if we assume he’s correct about the consequences.
Again, this may sound cynical, but it’s simply realistic. A common problem in the U.S. is that too much is not being done that should be done while astonishingly many resources are being poured into the military. It’s only natural that even the slightest attempt to make a rational calculation about mil spending confirms this.
Seriously? The Cold War thing?
Americans never seem to remember how a dozen German divisions guarded the West – more than the U.S. did put where it counted the most.
This was the conventional part. As a German, I’m not particularly thankful for having lived for my early life knowing that if it came to war, our “allies” would nuke me (as demonstrated in several wargames).
The U.S.’s Cold War effort was selfish, and the alliance was reciprocal. Germany isn’t Iceland.
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Your approach about air pollution and traffic accidents is a completely wrong one. Mixing issues only muddles the water. Stay focused on one issue, decide on a case-by case basis. The valuation/monetarisation of life as an expression of resourcce constraints frees one from the need to compare with any (or all) other cases.
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Your ‘nuke in NYC’ example is a classic scaremonger favourite. Problem is, it’s utterly unrealistic and unlikely. The scenario is near-irrelevant becuase of its marginal probability. And it’s again muddling the water.
Besides, it’s negatively related with military spending. More military spending leads to a higher probability of wars of choice and bullying which in turn increases the probability of terrorism.
The primitive ‘strength = security’ assumption is nonsense. It’s not even reliable against nation states.
*accidental double post*
Why didn’t they just shut down VIP transport operations (ya know…those flights used by presidents and congressional types)? There’s significant savings there, and it would have been more effective at sending a “message” than the cuts that are targeted at their own people, thus encouraging them to complain to said congressional hacks who caused most of the problems in the first place.
So much of this is about grandstanding and positioning that it’s sickening. And that “technologically advanced adversaries” card is a bit ragged. They’d better try to find another one.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/lockheed-martins-herculean-efforts-profit-defense-spending
I don’t know. I’m not trying to single anyone out, I do this for everything and everyone if I’m in the mood, I search names and cities and companies on search engines or Google books.
The problem is, the webs are so interconnected within the Western “security elite” world that an outsider can become completely turned around, sometimes too suspicious, other times fooled into complacency. Is there anyone in that world that hasn’t served on some BAE “board”?