Possible New Cold War? High-Fives in the Halls of the Pentagon

[xchrom]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22278-possible-new-cold-war-high-fives-in-the-halls-of-the-pentagon


From left: Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Undersecretary of Defense Robert Hale testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding Pentagon budget requests, on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 5, 2014. (Photo: Gabriella Demczuk / The New York Times)

The Pentagon released its proposed budget this week. As usual, the kabuki dance has started. Does the budget include true cuts instead of just trimming a very high increase? Is sequestration gutting our national defense, and therefore, should we just cut food stamps instead? It is an annual dance played by all the players: the DOD civilian secretary, the generals, the Congress, the White House and the defense contractors. At the end of the dance, the DOD will get what it wants - and the DOD budget has more than doubled since 9/11. The sequestration has limited the DOD budget to a lower amount for fiscal year 2015, but the DOD has attached a “wish list,” and Congress will, as it almost always does, get around most of the sequestration-mandated cuts. Either way, total defense spending, in constant dollars, is at a higher rate than the peak of the Reagan buildup and the height of the Vietnam War.

But how can the DOD justify the ceaseless increase in its budget? The war in Afghanistan is supposed to be winding down, and no planes have flown into US buildings lately to scare us into opening up the federal checkbook for whatever the DOD says we need to stay safe. The public is war-weary. The American people, for the most part, now want to stay out of wars and perhaps invest more in this country.

However, President Vladimir Putin of Russia just gave the DOD a possible reprieve from the citizens’ war-weary thoughts. As Putin continues to invade parts of Ukraine and the United States continues its economic and military saber rattling, the media is abuzz with speculation of the resumption of the Cold War, which was declared dead when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1990.

In many ways, the Cold War never really ended. The Pentagon continued to build the tanks, planes and ships designed for the Cold War even though these weapons were not appropriate for the newer types of wars. Once these weapons and their offspring got bureaucratic, Congressional and, most important, government contractor constituencies, it didn’t matter that they were mainly designed to keep the Soviets from invading Western Europe. The Pentagon just kept making different versions of the same failed and overrun systems for decades. Many of these weapons were woefully inadequate for the skirmishes and smaller wars we got ourselves into after Vietnam. That didn’t stop the endless rise in the DOD procurement budget, because there were contractors to lobby and generals intent on making reputations for themselves. Those contractors and generals could then retire to advise contractors and members of Congress intent on bringing home the federal DOD dollars to their districts.

[drm604]

1. Quite an informal bunch, those joint chiefs.

I think you may have linked to the wrong picture.