It will, undoubtedly, be painful — for the troops who will be unemployed and for the communities that are economically dependent upon those troops and their families.
The United States Army plans to cut 40,000 troops over the next two years, along with 17,000 Army civilian employees. Under the plan, the Army would have 450,000 soldiers by the end of the 2017 budget year, a drawdown necessitated by the sequestration cuts that were part of a 2011 Congressional budget accord. It all contributes to the largest Department of Defense reduction since the aftermath of the Cold War.
And it will be painful. In January, more than 500 citizens turned out at a town hall in Lakewood, near Tacoma, to protest proposed cuts at nearby Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Local business owners spoke of the economic damage that will come if thousands of military families pull out of the area, with a smaller population meaning fewer customers for their shops and shrinking real estate values for their properties because of reduced demand. Those concerns are being echoed across the country, and the warnings are even more dire in military areas that do not have the economic diversity and economic options of the Puget Sound region.
The consternation is understandable, and yet it points out the absurd levels to which the United States military has grown. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States’ military expenditure of $610 billion in 2014 was nearly triple that of the nation with the second-largest expenditure — China, at $216 billion. U.S. defense spending also was greater than the Nos. 2-7 nations combined, and it represented 34 percent of the world’s defense expenditures.
Nobody is arguing that the United States should have anything less than the world’s largest, most sophisticated and best-trained military. This country remains a favorite target of rogue nations, and by virtue of its size and wealth, it retains a moral obligation to intervene in extreme situations around the globe. National defense is one of the paramount duties of the federal government.
But when the United States’ defense budget is 722 percent that of the No. 3 nation (Russia), then it is likely that some reasonable cuts can be made — and that is where things get difficult. The tricky little secret of the U.S. military is that nearly every state has a military installation (Washington has seven of them), meaning that any proposed budget cuts are guaranteed to generate an outcry.
In 1961, upon leaving office, President Eisenhower famously warned of the growing “military-industrial complex” and the inordinate power that it wielded. The corollary to that could be the military-economic complex, a system in which the crony capitalism of defense spending makes communities beholden to a form of federal welfare. Altering that system will be slow and difficult, and it will require states and local governments to take an active role.
Last month, Gov. Jay Inslee convened a new committee to assist troops and civilian workers facing cuts at Lewis-McChord. Already, Washington has been using programs that help veterans transition into careers with companies such as Starbucks and Microsoft, and additional innovations will be essential. “I think about the individuals that have stood post in Anbar province (in Iraq) and in the heights of Afghanistan,” Inslee said. “These are people who are going to need us in the coming months by the thousands.”
That part will be painful, yet it is reasonable and necessary.
