Comments on: Expanding

By: Unjoin the party « Upturned Earth || John Schwenkler

Unjoin the party « Upturned Earth || John Schwenkler — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:56:25 +0000

[...] The idea, which one hears occasionally from certain quarters, that it’s the influence of the lame and intensely unpopular Bush, as opposed to a much more deep-seated cowardice and lack of principle, that’s behind this phenomenon, seems to me to be tremendously naive: the fact is that the Democrats (like the Republicans, of course) are simply so caught up in the frenzy of the “post-9/11 mindset” that they are incapable of calling a spade a spade and taking real steps to roll back even the worst and most blatantly illegal of the measures that were put in place by the Bush Administration and its Congressional enablers. Like many on the Right, most of the American Left has become so fearful of the political fallout that comes being labeled “soft” or “scared” or “isolationist” or “appeasing” that, when push comes to shove, they end up funding the war and getting out of the way of illegal domestic spying, pledging to expand the military and “obliterate” Middle Eastern countries, making irresponsible and inflammatory statements in public addresses, and so on. Whether they will actually find their, er, cojones once they have an even larger Congressional majority and a more supportive President of course remains to be seen; I, however, remain on record as having a less than rosy outlook for the future. [...]

By: Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:00:11 +0000

The true military-industrial complex is in love with complex and expensive weapons systems that have less and less to do with the present strategic conjuncture. To the extent that we can spend less money on increasingly inefficient boondoggles, we may be ahead of the game, even if total expenditures don’t decline.

McCain, in the past, has made this point. How much Kool-Aid the man has imbibed remains in question.

By: expertlaw

expertlaw — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:25:46 +0000

We may be in the odd position of having to expand the military in order to be able to contract. A growing part of our military budget is spent on “contractors” who increasingly perform tasks that the military is no longer capable of doing. In theory that saves money, because you only pay the contractors when you need them. In practice, it seems to be turning into a metastatic mess of cost-plus contracts, with costs vastly exceeding what the military once paid for the same services as performed in-house. I think it would take another 50-60,000 soldiers just to replace private, armed “security personnel” in Iraq.

I’m not saying that Obama’s motive is to bring costs down by expanding the military such that it can again perform those services for itself. That could be what he means by “rebuild some capabilities”, but I have not seen any details of this proposal. Yet if you believe that’s a desirable goal I’m not sure how it can presently be achieved without increasing military forces.