美好的时代：军事预算失控

军事预算失控了。不是“浪费，欺诈和虐待”的口头禅。That is, in fact, a tiny slice of the enormous U.S. military spending.不，从军事支出不再受到有意义的政治审查的意义上说，预算是失控的。五角大楼已经滑倒了，国会没有提出问题。

国会正在考虑布什总统proposed budget, which included $515 billion for the military and separate requests for tens of billions more for intelligence and nuclear weapons and, on top of that, separate requests of over a hundred billion can be expected to cover the operating costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.This is more than we spent on the military during the height of the Cold War, even accounting for inflation.The president is constantly reminding us of how dangerous the world is and, of course, the threats to American security are all too real.但是，只有当我们对冷战期间的威胁实际上是多余的，利用当今美国面临的威胁来证明冷战级预算是合理的。

想象一下自冷战结束以来，制作美国安全环境的电影。By now, the movie is twenty years long and it ends with today’s military threats and today’s military budgets.Now imagine running the film backwards.What trends in the US security situation are revealed as the movie goes back in time?

As the movie opens, the US faces continuing military conflict in the Middle East and potential trouble on the Korean Peninsula.当我们播放电影时，我们看到了一些有利的趋势。即使朝鲜和伊朗的核威胁可能会逐渐增加，即使他们的传统能力可能正在逐渐增加。大规模恐怖袭击对美国祖国的威胁从实在是太真实的，变成了潜在的潜在威胁。

然而，这些较小国家的所有变化都被我们时期的电影中的一个压倒性发展所吸引，即俄罗斯正在发生的事情。随着电影的开始，俄罗斯是一个多刺的国家，显然不是盟友，而是敌人。但是，直言不讳，无论俄罗斯是朋友还是敌人对我们传统的安全计算并不重要，因为俄罗斯的传统军事能力是如此有限，以至于它几乎无关紧要。随着时间的流逝，会发生什么事情令人惊讶。经过几年的艰难经济效率低下的混乱，一切似乎立刻发生了。Russia is gripped by a Communist ideology that at first is rather benign but rapidly grows more threatening until finally the Communist Party believes it has a destiny of world domination.

党的工程工具推翻了俄罗斯政府，然后继续颠覆其邻国，迅速将他们纳入了一个称为苏联的俄罗斯帝国。尽管这是糟糕的，但随着电影的及时延续到1980年代后期，情况变得更糟。苏联建立并支持东欧的共产党，甚至在我们的北约盟友内，一个接一个地，这些民主政府被推翻，退出北约，并加入了一个敌对的联盟，即华沙条约。The most crushing defeat of all comes when the center of NATO, Germany, with the largest economy in Europe, suffers a bloodless civil war and the eastern quarter of the country succeeds, sets up a Communist dictatorship, and then invites in a vast Soviet army.现在在欧洲的中心有五十个装甲部门，面对曾经是泛欧洲北约联盟的其余部分。Hundreds of thousands of US troops are rushed to the truncated Germany to shore up the defense of Western Europe.The fate of the world is in question.

既然磁带已经回到了起点，也就是说，到冷战的最后几天，美国的总体反应是什么？具体来说，我们可以想象美国总统去国会，审查这些事件，然后自信地说：“军方不再需要任何钱。我们之前要处理伊朗和朝鲜等中等权力的事情完全足以应对欧洲的这一新苏联威胁。”Does this sound even remotely plausible?Yet this is exactly the essence of the argument that is presented when the film is played forward, that resources needed twenty years after the Cold War are the same as those needed during the Cold War.这可能怎么可能？

Most calls for reexamination of the military budget include lists of expensive Cold War weapons that should be cancelled.这项练习在重点旁边。美国放弃了任何假装将其军事扩展与潜在敌人构成的威胁成比例，从“基于威胁”的计划转向明确“基于能力”的计划。This means, independent of who our friends are and who our enemies are and what their military capabilities are, military planners set some goal that must be met.这具有奇怪的后果，如果贵族明天将伊朗，朝鲜，甚至中国的伊朗和潜在敌人接管，军事“要求”就不会改变，预算不会被镍落下。

Lacking any benchmark from which to measure, it is extremely difficult, and inherently arbitrary, to set a goal for US military capability.但是，一旦设定了目标，“需求”逃脱逻辑。如果没有具体衡量的东西，我们将无法设定理性的优先事项，例如，决定一种武器与另一种武器。Even though Russian and Chinese submarines rarely put out to sea, the Navy continues to buy large, fast Virginia-class submarines at two billion dollars apiece.最后，我们正在与自己竞争。

当国防大门和其他人将我们的军事能力与国民经济规模联系在一起时，他们将真正超凡脱俗。Gates has called for the country to commit to spending 4% of GDP on the military.因此，如果经济增长，军事力量，无论世界其他地区正在发生什么。这种逻辑表明，该国在1920年代应该花费更多的时间，当时世界看起来很友善，但是经济却在飙升，而与1930年代的战争前景越来越令人恐惧，但经济却越来越大。

这似乎是批评军事预算的糟糕时期。毕竟，这个国家不是一场而是两次战争。Yet the Iraq and Afghan wars provide a sobering yardstick of comparison.政府对阿富汗和伊拉克战争的真实成本并不诚实，很可能，没有人会知道战争的实际成本。预算带来了单独的执行战争请求，但仅在2009财政年度的一部分。当补充剂加起来时，年度可能会达到150-200亿美元的范围。这是很多钱，也不能包括损失和破碎的生命 - 但关于这个数字最令人惊讶的事情是，大约是“和平时期”预算请求的三分之一。将预算请求置于视角的一种方法是，认为军方的日常和平时期行动等同于与三个伊拉克和三场阿富汗战争作斗争。这个国家用所有军事肌肉做什么？

现在，美国军方的花费与世界其他军队的总和一样多。And most of the next dozen or so big spenders—and the second place, China, is a distant second place—are not our enemies but our friends and allies, including Britain, Germany, Japan, France, and South Korea.Pentagon planners consider this such a natural state of affairs that it does not occur to them to bother to explain why it should be so.

国会议员，民主党人可能比共和党人更多，希望被视为支持军队和国家的安全和力量。但是，如果没有威胁要将我们的军事能力绑定到的威胁，我们不仅无法实际计算我们需要的力量和武器，而且还没有有用的军事能力措施。因此，我们需要一个替代措施，而代孕是金钱。当所有的尘土都解决时，这对总统或国会的去向确实几乎没有什么影响，至少在国会议员自己的地区没有的一部分。What matters is what the top line is, how big an increase over last year, how large a dollar figure compared to that proposed by the opposition.Money is the measure of seriousness about security, a vast security potlatch.

超支在军队上不仅仅是浪费资源。it can hurt the nation’s security in the long term.每当一个社会开始不思想接受自己的委婉语时，就会出轨的危险。The military budget is inevitably called the “defense” budget, blurring the fact that our defense depends on much more than what the Pentagon can deliver.美国人对该国在外国援助上的花费的估计非常大，民意测验表明，美国人知道，在巴基斯坦建立一所女子学校对我们的安全可能与购买另一架战斗机一样重要。但是关于“防御”预算的辩论掩盖了这些选择。With the military gorged with resources, we turn first to our military for solutions.Our security and foreign policy become militarized.We turn to the military to fight terrorism, which, in the great majority of cases, would be better left to good intelligence and police work.The nation would have a more honest debate about priorities if we went back to 1948 and again started calling the Department of Defense the Department of War.然后，每个人都会清楚我们要付出的钱。

Once money becomes the measure of the military and the military is equated with defense, no one can question the budget without being accused of being weak on defense.共和党人乐于保持高空，民主党人不断脆弱。因此，自第二次世界大战以来，最大的军事预算可能会以最少的国会听证会而通过，也没有对策略进行讨论。The Pentagon’s budget has, quite literally, got out of control.改变很快就不太可能了，但最终，国家需要辩论我们的军队要做什么，真正的危险以及如何应对我们安全的挑战。