Is the U.S. Military Affordable

[bourbon]

What this shows me is that food and electric devices are still very much a bargain relative to 1960.
Where that factor fails is in the cost of a house.

Cole, I think you need to examine changes in the past 50 years.

Simply put, the way a home is built in 2011 is more similar to the way it was in 1960, than the way consumer electronics were manufactured or food was produced in 1960 compared to the way they are today.

Modern technology and globalization has brought efficiency and competitive forces which have driven food and consumer electronic production costs downward. On the other hand, housing remains a labor intensive industry; and I do not believe that the housing industry has experienced the technological efficiencies or the competitive forces of a similar magnitude.

This is to say nothing of the role in which speculation has played in housing.

So I would advocate that many of the economic ills we face today are directly attributable to the artificial inflation of houses and incomes in our nation's primary commercial coastal hubs...like Boston. Also, the cost of paying for college is higher today relative to 1960, because apparently professors with Ph.D.s seem to think they are worth more money.
...
And the fact that Professor Bacevich lives near Boston tells me he probably owns a house worth considerably more than 12 times the average price of a new home in 1960...

Again, speculation in housing plays a large role. Also the tech and financial sectors of the economy are centered primarily in the commercial coastal hubs, and these industries have made for a disproportionate share of the past 20 years economic gains; as a result real estate prices followed similar growth geographically.

I would say the rise of college tuition costs has had more to do with the decline in state financing than it does with professor’s salaries. I would also look at the massive expansion of full-time support staff and administrative positions; you didn’t all these IT workers 20 years ago, and you didn’t need all the back office staff to deal with all these laws and regulations 50 years ago. The shift toward a focus on student amenities rather than academics also needs to be considered.

This forum has several Ph.Ds who are college professors, and I think most would say they could be making more money if they did something other than teaching (at-least in pre-2008). Maybe less so for the liberal arts types, but for someone like selil in IT, I am sure the difference is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual income.


Further, as a Boston University graduate and having had the privilege of taking Professor Bacevich’s American military history course, I can say that the school could easily double or triple his salary and still get its money worth. His course was the most rewarding educational experience I have ever had, and I say this as someone who at the time of taking the course was a non-matriculated student with a problem in motivation and a poor educational track-record in both experience and in practice.

Lest you have the impression that Professor Bacevich is some lefty academic jagoff or are unfamiliar with his background (which this article does not get into); it is notable that he is a West Point graduate and Vietnam vet who retired from active duty with the rank of Colonel. He is also an old school conservative and devout Catholic. This makes him a unique voice in the academic, for which he should not be brushed aside as a liberal academic elite.

And fwiw, Prof. Bacevich uses public transportation and shares a compact sedan with his family iirc. I would imagine such thrift extends to the rest of his lifestyle, including his house.

[Bob's World]

The U.S. military could become much more affordable if we did the following simple steps:

1. Stop subsidizing the defense of Western European and NE Asian and North American countries that are more than capable of providing their own defense. We have sustained this bill in order to keep a string on these guys that we can pull when we want them to do something that supports our interests, but may not necessarily support their own. Time to find a new tool for garnering that type of support, or come up with new foreign policies that demand it less often.

2. Stop seeking to "contain" problems that were arguably legitimate "threats" 40-60 years ago, but are now much more an issue of will and pride rather than national security.

3. Stop seeking to control every outcome around the globe that impacts upon some U.S. national interest or another. Assume a little risk, employ a little more diplomacy, and become a lot more flexible in how we work with others.

4. Focus on the capabilities required to deter and defeat the types of threats that actually pose a threat to our national survival.

5. Re-balance the force between the RC and the AC to fully extricate ourselves from a Cold War paradigm that required a large, forward deployed force to deter Soviets in Western Europe primarily, but also the North Koreans and the Chinese somewhat as well.

Such changes will not only produce immediate savings, but will also serve to reduce the friction that contributes so much to the "irregular warfare" that vexes us today.

[Fuchs]

The U.S. military could become much more affordable if we did the following simple steps:

1. Stop subsidizing the defense of Western European and NE Asian and North American countries that are more than capable of providing their own defense. We have sustained this bill in order to keep a string on these guys that we can pull when we want them to do something that supports our interests, but may not necessarily support their own. Time to find a new tool for garnering that type of support, or come up with new foreign policies that demand it less often.

I'm not sure that this happens at all. Sure, there are troops deployed overseas, but I don't think that European security is being enhanced by U.S. troops in Europe. The European NATO military is sufficient, even if compared with Arab, Iranian and CIS military power at once.

It's similar with East Asia. South Korea's forces are clearly superior to North Korea's, and the lone U.S. division in South Korea and a few jets on Okinawa don't change that.

Taiwan's security strategy doesn't even seem to depend on military power, especially not land power. They could expect few if any U.S. land forces as reinforcement (paras maybe), but their army is the most neglected of their armed services - basically a mediocre 70's force.

I'm furthermore not even sure that the U.S. is even intent on subsidizing allied powers' national security.



My only logical explanation for the whole forward-basing (which is really risky, think Force Z) is therefore rather your third point; an extreme bully interventionist foreign policy.
It just happens to look like your first point, but that's mere façade.