The Bottom Line On Defense Sequestration: Warfighters Will Die

<blockquote>Your approach about air pollution and traffic accidents is a completely wrong one. </blockquote>

At one point in your blog you self-subscribe to Liberal Green policies. If these were applied in the U.S., it further would weaken our competitiveness against say for instance the world’s 4th largest economy that spends only 1.5% of GDP or $46 billion on defense. Perhaps your country’s decision after the Japan tsunami to close its nuclear power plants that supplied nearly a quarter of your energy was ill-advised given your lack of earthquake faults. Seems such a decision also makes you more vulnerable to Russians simply cutting off your natural gas if you don’t agree to pay them enough.

You misinterpreted my sarcasm in comparing the deaths from air pollution vs. caused by car accidents. In any event, the air pollution study was largely notional. Air pollution is localized and only problematic in larger urban areas so why should others face the same power-source constraints. California, for instance, has different auto pollution standards than the rest of the nation due to localized problems. If you look at other articles you would discover that in January 2013, Beijing was measured at 900 micrograms per cubic meter (40 times acceptable limit of World Health Organization) while the Chinese government was reporting just 70-80 micrograms. For comparison, London was measured at 13.5 and Los Angeles at 14.8 micrograms in 2008. That seems to imply the problem is far worse in China and far less severe in the U.S. and Europe than the study asserted.

<blockquote>I didn't claim Germany could have stopped the Soviets. I wrote it was standing up against them with a dozen divisions in Central Europe - more than the U.S.Army had there during the Cold War. We defended the U.S. as the U.S. defended us - except we didn't plan to nuke the U.S.</blockquote>

This denial of reality is why Godwin's Law...rebutting a German...does not apply.;) You seem to ignore that other U.S. divisions were planning to arrive and had prepositioned equipment awaiting them. Other aircraft also could have arrived far sooner. Without our nuclear umbrella, there was no MAD mutual deterrent and had we simply stayed isolationists, the USSR could have invaded you effortlessly or used tactical nukes to their heart’s content. A collective NATO defense existed because we spent the money to forward deploy a large presence in Europe, not because we needed Germany to defend us in the U.S.

<blockquote>Your 'nuke in NYC' example is a classic scaremonger favorite. Problem is, it's utterly unrealistic and unlikely. The scenario is near-irrelevant because of its marginal probability.</blockquote>

Today’s headlines report DPRK attempting to smuggle missile components from Cuba through the Panama Canal back home for an upgrade. Pardon my observation that a bomb could just as easily sail the other direction or from Iran or Pakistan with a bomb on board, sailing into NYC or some other city with lead-shielding to preclude detection. Rant Corp has correctly observed that if drugs can be smuggled to the U.S., so can terrorists and their WMD.

<blockquote>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.</blockquote>

And yet it was imminently reliable for 45 years against Cold War foes and never led to a superpower war of choice started by ourselves or the USSR. It also caused that opponent to spend themselves into nonexistence. In contrast, non-bullied non-state foes chose terror to punish us despite the fact that we freed Muslims from the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Kuwaitis from Hussein in 1991, Balkan Muslims being slaughtered during the mid to late 90s, and had nothing to do with Chechnya aggression by Russia. If it comes down to a choice between having an inadequate response when attacked, or a deterrent and effective response, seems pretty clear which Americans would prefer given our history of minding our own business and still getting attacked or threatened.

Yeah, I'm confident Germany could have stopped the Soviets on their own...

As you downplay the Cold War, just as Germans were able to downplay or ignore the Holocaust going on around them (I have a half-German wife and very German ancestors), lets see you downplay this:

<blockquote>"The Marshall Plan and other forms of foreign assistance between them cost the United States $17.6 billion (or $120 billion in current value for the Marshall Plan alone)--as we said, the largest voluntary transfer of resources in history. Ten years after the end of the greatest war in history, Western Europe had not only fully recovered but had become far more prosperous and productive than before."</blockquote>

That quote came from this article:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7689

Keep in mind that it was written in 1997 so use your math skills to about double what the $120 billion would be worth today.

Perhaps the Secretary, Thompson, and you missed the point about costs. For starters, sequestration demands that half the cuts come from only the 17-18% of the federal budget that DoD expends. So obviously, opportunities for additional savings would exist if other federal agencies had to find savings equivalent to what DoD is having to find. Is there a single federal civilian being furloughed outside the DoD? Show me one.

Second, let's apply your cost analysis to another area...say the EPA and coming regulations to try and affect global warming and air pollution. A recent study cited that up to 2.1 million of the world's citizens have their life cut short due to air pollution as measured by some obscure term PM2.5. Sounds serious right? Except read the study and find a chart showing the premature death toll in North America is only 43,000, which is about how many die prematurely each year due to car accidents. Do we want to ban driving like we plan to ban coal?

Meanwhile, East Asia (China) and India had 1,049,000 and 397,000 premature deaths due to smog. Yet no matter how stringent we impose air quality regulations in the U.S., they won't begin to improve conditions in China or India while they are guaranteed to make us less competitive with them in manufacturing and raise our energy costs to heat homes. How many Americans may freeze to death or suffer unnecessarily due to high energy costs?

Look at the overall costs of strangling the U.S. economy attempting to eek out the last bit of clean air. Higher energy costs and fewer jobs are the result which clearly would add up to far more than anything saved from DoD due to sequestration. We spent about $80 billion on Food Stamps last year. How much will that increase with fewer folks working as we limit coal, pipeline building, and drilling on public lands and off shore? Look at the lost tax revenue and higher unemployment costs of fewer folks working.

Now look at the estimated $100 billion that Hurricane Sandy cost the east coast. Imagine instead of your cited 10,000 dead servicemen in the next decade that a terrorist, or DPRK, Iranian, or Pakistani rogue group infiltrates a nuclear device into NYC resulting in over 100,000 dead and trillions in expenses with permanently radiated land unable to be occupied for decades.

Finally, Madhu chastised the military the other day as she sat comfortably in Boston probably making close to half a million annually and contributing to a far higher than inflation medical insurance, MEDICARE, and hospital cost crisis. I researched that a smallish townhouse in Boston costs upwards of $350,000 and no doubt a regular moderate size house probably means at a cost of half a million. So we have major urban areas contributing the most to air pollution, housing inflation, medical costs...and don't forget the Big Dig that by the time interest is paid will cost about $24 billion? How much do we think that California high speed train to nowhere will cost? My Mom recently spent all of $3.50 travelling from northern to southern California on a fancy new bus line. Yet we need that train to put you out in the middle of nowhere?

Before we all start piling onto the military, look around, and don't forget Mr. Fuchs to look at how our country rebuilt yours and protected you from the Soviets for over 65 years at considerable expense.