Argument In The UK On Defense Spending Will Spread To The U.S.

The British Labor Government is facing a major budget crisis that has been building for several years. The biggest casualty of it all will probably be their Armed Forces. The argument in that country may foreshadow the one to come in the United States. It is almost a given that at some point Obama will need to make major cuts in the U.S. defense spending as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down. The first budget proposed makes major changes to the future of spending in the U.S. by restructuring the major defense programs funded.

In England they are facing the problem of their heavy social spending, falling revenue and attempts to stimulate the economy. The government only has so much money and it has already discussed raising taxes significantly. Now as part of their future planning they are proposing major cuts to overall defense spending. This has started a discussion about what are the defense needs of the nation and at what level to fund it.

Like the U.S. has done over the last nine years England has taken money out of acquisition to fund current operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unlike the U.S. their troops have suffered from poor equipment that has led to problems when deployed. In a situation like this there are two ways to cut the defense budget. First you can cut some big programs and nibble at the edges of all the others reducing the number of ships and aircraft and men. This leads to less-and-less capability with an inefficient support base. The other, as recommended by the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) is to do a review from scratch and figure out what missions are necessary and fund the forces to do that.

A report by an independent panel recommended that the UK give up on its great power weapons systems such as a nuclear deterrent and focus on regional and internal threats. This means that expensive, advanced systems like the new carriers, jet fighters and submarines would have to be stopped and scrapped. They also want greater cooperation with Europe to offset some of the losses of these systems.

The focus of all this is England needs to decide what it can afford and do. One hundred years ago it possessed the largest Navy in the world, a small, capable Army and a fledgling air force. With this the British Empire covered half the globe. If they wanted the country could focus on maintaining an large, well equipped force but it would be at the cost of social spending. That decision has really been made over the last fifty years and the decline in capability of the UK will continue.

The U.S. will be facing these same kind of decisions in the near future. When the government’s debt is increasing four fold in one year and plans to spend trillions on health care and the social safety net the obvious place to cut is the military. The U.S. Army operates about 55% of the force it had in 1991 now. If there is to be serious cuts in spending then it will not just be new weapon systems but people — soldiers, civil servants and contractors. During a recession teetering on a depression it may not be the best time to eliminate all of those jobs.