Abstract
U.S. national security depends on more than military prowess. But you wouldn't know that looking at the latest budget.
Reading through the bush administration's 2007 budget proposal, it's hard not to think of that old axiom, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” For the past five years, the dual goals of U.S. security policy have been to fight terrorism and to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And the tool of choice has been military force. This approach, however, has clearly reached its limits of effectiveness. (Witness the worsening security situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.) What's still needed is a strategy that addresses the underlying problems that give rise to global insecurity–widespread economic inequality and poverty, weak or brittle governance that collapses into failed states, and clashes based on identity and faith–and a budget that supports that strategy.
The administration has conceded to some of this reality. The latest budget funds a diverse toolbox of initiatives encompassing foreign policy, economic assistance, public diplomacy, defense, and homeland security. Yet a closer look at the numbers reveals that the “hammer” of military force remains the tool of choice.
Total spending in fiscal 2007 for all of these aforementioned programs would top $585 billion. National defense (funds for the Defense Department plus nuclear programs in the Energy Department) would get 85 percent of the total ($460 billion plus a supplemental $50 billion down payment on next year's needs for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global counterterrorism effort). Homeland security accounts for 9 percent, growing to $53.8 billion, up from $50.4 billion last year. And funding for international affairs, which encompasses diplomacy, foreign assistance, and public outreach, would receive 6 percent of the total, at $35.1 billion.
The defense budget is being driven upward not merely by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also by virtue of the split personality that characterizes today's U.S. military. On the one hand, the Pentagon continues to spend a lot on next-generation hardware that fits with traditional, high-intensity combat, including: the F-22 air superiority fighter plane ($2.7 billion), the DDX next-generation destroyer ($3.3 billion), the next-generation aircraft carrier ($1.1 billion), the V-22 tilt-rotor cargo and passenger aircraft ($2.3 billion), national missile defense ($10.4 billion), next-generation attack submarines ($2.6 billion), and the army's Future Combat System, which is an ensemble of high-tech vehicles, communications, and combat systems ($3.7 billion). On the other hand, the U.S. military is adapting to new missions–intervention, stabilization, and terrorist-hunting–as reflected in efforts to restructure the army into smaller, brigade-sized units, adding more than 6,000 personnel to the Special Forces, and doubling the number of unmanned aerial vehicles (for example, six high-altitude Global Hawks at $429 million). This budgetary straddle guarantees a large and continually growing military budget.
“Until now, I never really considered diplomacy.”
Despite this largesse, even the Defense Department recognizes the need for a budget that matches a strategic vision. The Pentagon's 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) laments that, absent effective diplomatic initiatives, “the [Defense] Department has tended to become the default responder during many contingencies.” The QDR calls for help: “The Defense Department cannot meet today's complex challenges alone. Success requires unified statecraft: the ability of the U.S. government to bring to bear all elements of national power at home and work in close cooperation with allies and partners abroad…. Interagency and international combined operations truly are the new joint operations.”
It is not clear from the new budget, however, that help is on the way. True, the budget asks for a $75 million Conflict Response Fund that would enable the State Department to develop the capabilities to rebuild “the institutions of government in post-conflict or failed-state situations.” But this is a small amount for such a responsibility, and the capability to do this at State will be many years in the making. In the meantime, there is little in the budget to support initiatives beyond the immediate triage of stabilizing conflict-ridden societies.
For instance, if democracy promotion is the goal, let alone building effective and stable governance, the United States is neither investing very much nor being very strategic. Programs promoting democracy in the Middle East will spread $120 million around roughly 15 countries through the Middle East Partnership Initiative. The National Endowment for Democracy, which promotes local, nongovernmental organizations and activities, gets another $80 million. USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives, which supports conflict resolution, community self-help, and grassroots media, receives $50 million. The Economic Support Fund (ESF) targets money to support democracy and government reforms in a wide number of countries, including a $35 million fund to promote democracy, human rights, and civil society in “countries of strategic importance” to the United States. The International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement account includes a proposed $255 million Iraq rule of law program. Support for governance and democracy, it seems, is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, with no unified vision.
Moreover, if the U.S. goal is to strengthen the security institutions and local forces in other countries, the Bush administration has a large, but somewhat distorted budget for doing so. The biggest portion goes toward Foreign Military Financing, at $4.5 billion. Most of those funds (90 percent) are allocated for Israel ($2.3 billion), Egypt ($1.3 billion), Pakistan ($300 million), and Jordan ($206 million). After that, the list falls off sharply into small aid packages. There are also large programs to support local efforts to eradicate narcotics production in Afghanistan and the Andean region in South America, in part through strengthening local law enforcement and military capabilities. Plus, a number of smaller programs seek to strengthen peacekeeping forces in Africa, in an effort to ensure that the United States and other nations do not need to become regional peacekeepers of first resort. Other small-scale programs, with funds scattered throughout counterterror-ism and law enforcement accounts, train and support local security forces to maintain effective order in weak states.
Meanwhile, budgetary efforts to address global inequalities are themselves economically imbalanced. Over the past five years, the administration has been eating away at traditional bilateral development assistance (now less than $2 billion), while creating two new assistance institutions that soak up considerable funding: the Millennium Challenge Account ($3 billion) and the global HIV/AIDS program ($4 billion). Millennium Challenge focuses on countries near economic takeoff–not the poorest countries most in need of assistance. And the AIDS effort, while playing an important role, does not address poverty directly. (A more comprehensive strategy would fully acknowledge that alleviating poverty is key in helping foreign governments develop the long-term capabilities and institutions to stem the pandemic.) Only the ESF programs can be said to focus on the poorest, weakest, and most potentially conflict-riddled countries. But 45 percent of the ESF budget request is earmarked for those countries on the frontline of the “war on terror”: Afghanistan ($610 million), Iraq ($479 million), and Pakistan ($350 million).
The administration's budget request does not fulfill the promise of defense transformation to deal with the critical security requirements of the twenty-first century, nor does it contain a coherent strategy to deal with the dangers of failed states, to strengthen democratic governance, or to reverse the trend toward increased levels of poverty in key regions of the world. There is no “grand design” here, in the spirit of the Marshall Plan, not even the more modest, but focused, post-Cold War effort to support the transition of former Warsaw Pact countries toward democracy and free markets. Instead, the numbers add up to a continued reliance on military options while limiting support for diplomacy and foreign assistance. For the United States, and the rest of the world, the need for a “rebalancing” of our security investment and greater attention to a strategic design is increasingly urgent.
Supplementary Material
Overview of the President's 2007 Budget