Grand illusion: costs of war and empire

THE ELECTION RESULTS of November and the firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have raised hopes of a significant change in U.S. foreign policy. Many blame Rumsfeld and the neoconservative idealogues for the disaster in Iraq, while neocons protest that Rumsfeld's "light army" strategy is the real problem. Some things should improve simply by virtue of the demise of Rumsfeld and the neocons' loss of credibility.

The current foreign-policy crisis, however, vastly exceeds the mistakes of Rumsfeld and the neocons; President Bush is still making nonsensical statements about "winning in Iraq" and "fulfilling the mission," and his administration is still loaded with people who want him to stake his legacy on doing so. The neoconservative ideology of his administration is merely an exaggerated version of the normal politics of American empire. Before a significant change for the better is possible, there must be a reckoning with the costs of the U.S.'s perpetual war and military empire. The recently approved Pentagon budget is a good place to get a measure of the hypermilitarized situation we are in.

The 2007 Pentagon budget, which pays for normal personnel, procurement and operational expenses, is up to $462 billion. The budget bill passed the Senate in September by a vote of 100 to 0, with virtually no debate. It includes $85 billion for weapons (a 7 percent increase) and seven new warships. It includes $24 billion to "reset" army and marine corps equipment, which is wearing out six times faster than expected because of the war. In a novel turn, the House and Senate decided to vote simultaneously on the regular budget and the fall supplement, which came to $70 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, making a total outlay for fiscal 2007 of $532.8 billion, with the next supplemental bill--a big one--already on its way. This budget does not include costs for nuclear weapons--set at $22 billion for next year which are allocated to the Energy Department.

Despite these immense outlays, budget analysts are warning of a coming financial train wreck, because the appropriations--in every category--fall short of the true costs of the war and the empire. Today the U.S. is spending $2 billion per week in Iraq, nearly all of it from emergency spending bills that add up to $380 billion thus far. The total for Afghanistan is $100 billion. These figures do not include disability and health payments for returning troops, inducements for soldiers to serve additional deployments, extra pay for reservists and National Guard members, and additional foreign aid to supportive nations. When these costs are included, along with the Pentagon's unprecedented dependence on expensive private contractors, the bill for five years of involvement in Iraq is expected to run at least $1.5 trillion, all of it added to the federal debt. Economist Joseph Stiglitz and public finance specialist Linda Bilmes estimate that $2 trillion is more realistic.

That comes to $18,000 per household--a far cry from what Americans were told to expect at the outset, when Rumsfeld said the war would cost under $50 billion, and Paul Wolfowitz said Iraq's oil would finance the nation's reconstruction. The U.S. could have fixed Social Security or provided health insurance for all uninsured Americans for the next half-century with the amount it is spending in Iraq. As it is, since the U.S. is borrowing to pay nearly the entire bill, it faces interest costs of approximately $300 billion for an offensive war of choice.

Meanwhile the country is caught in the classic imperial dilemma of spending immense sums on the military yet lacking enough military to cover its foreign policy. Two months ago Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker withheld his required 2008 budget plan as a protest against what his staff called a "disastrous" and "unsustainable" situation in the army. The army's regular budget this year is $99 billion, but Schoomaker is holding out for a 41 percent increase in 2008. A senior army official says, "Yes, it's incredibly huge. These are just incredible numbers." Another senior Pentagon official, speaking of Schoomaker's hardball tactics, says, "This is unusual, but hell, we're in unusual times." Top budget official Jerry Sinn explains: "It's kind of like the old rancher saying, 'I'm going to size the herd to the amount of hay that I have.' Schoomaker can't size the herd to the amount of hay that he has because he's got to maintain the herd to meet the current operating environment."

By law, the army has been limited to 482,400 troops, but 30,000 troops added on a temporary basis in 2004 have become more or less permanent. The army's current active duty force is 504,000, with a ceiling of 512,400, of which more than 400,000 have done at least one tour of combat duty. More than one-third of these troops have been deployed twice or more. They are supplemented by 346,000 troops from the Army National Guard, which were thoroughly tapped out a year ago, although the guard has rebounded since then, recruiting 19,000 more soldiers this year than last year. Still, the army is struggling to sustain rotations, and it has instituted what amounts to a back-door draft by relying on the National Guard and extending many tours of duty.