Biden Failing to Lead of Defense Reform
Many of the talking heads in our media equate security and defense with how much we spend on our military.
Evidently, President Joe Biden agrees with those talking heads, as his administration’s first defense budget is $715 billion, larger than President Donald Trump’s last defense budget. Just $10.4 billion is allocated to cybersecurity, identified as a threat by many. However, this isn’t the labor-intensive task as other portions of our defense budget and therefore doesn’t serve as a jobs creator as other portions of the budget. So, it doesn’t receive as much attention. Arguments over what really constitutes security are absent in today’s discussion on defense. However, there are a few in the political realm willing to speak some truth. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, called the budget request “a starting point,” adding that in-depth, bipartisan hearings will be held to hash out the proposal’s details because “taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for programs or systems that are wasteful or ineffective.” Again, we could invest more in cybersecurity and spend much less on military hardware and be safer. However, we’re not receiving any leadership from Mr. Biden or many others.
Of course, some — working on behalf of the military-industrial complex — are arguing that Biden’s budget is a radical departure from Trump’s, not even an argument if one looks at the numbers. Defense currently makes up just under half of total federal spending, according to the National Priorities Project. Hypersonic weapons are particularly important to President Biden’s defense budget. Sara Sirota pointed out in her story “Biden’s Defense Budget is a Big Win for Hypersonic Weapons Contractors” that the Pentagon has yet to point out the exact reason we need such weapons, but we’re spending billions on them anyway! On top of the dollars spent, such weapons might kick off an arms race with geopolitical competitors like Russia and China.
Proponents claim hypersonic weapons travel faster than the speed of sound and can evade detection by our enemies. However, some have voiced opposition.
“Numerous questions about the weapons remain, such as how the Pentagon plans to use them, their cost-effectiveness, and still-underexplored crisis instability risks,” said Kingston Reif, the Arms Control Association’s disarmament expert. “These unanswered questions deserve a more critical examination by the Biden administration and Congress than has been undertaken to date.”
Cameron Tracy, an arms control expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, recently argued that hypersonic weapons’ value has been exaggerated.
“Using public data from a 2010 experimental Air Force boost-glide vehicle (one of two kinds of hypersonic systems), Tracy found that these weapons are in fact slower than ballistic missiles traveling intercontinental distances and are vulnerable to detection by space-based sensors,” said Sirota of Tracy’s findings in her story.
While our country seems obsessed with every penny spent on anything non-military, the military-industrial complex has cornered the market on the discussion of the definition of security.
When will the debate on real security start? Of course, that debate should include what it takes for our country (its citizens) to be economically secure, a key component of our overall security. More economic security might blunt the trend away from liberal democracy and toward authoritarian democracy.
Jason Sibert
Executive director of the Peace Economy Project in St. Louis. This story was originally published in Today’s Advantage
