... nothing more to add, really.

I think the motivation for the position of the remaining 'neoconservatives' is largely to maintain some sort of of political relevance, to keep their narrative alive in the face of extended failures of their ideas. It is conceptually easy to say, "we're at WAR!!" and beg for continued infusion of $$ into the establishment. It is harder to admit that for all the $$ spent, little to nothing has been accomplished, and that perhaps a reevaluation is in order.

This "spend more on defense" argument coming from the conservative side has always seemed ironic to me. Calling for increased defense spending is a play for the fearful and the MIC. I can't say that I've ever seen data that shows that increased military spending actually stabilizes the international eocnomic environment - and using the bipolar Cold War period is inherently dishonest since that is not the world we live in now. C'mon, neo-cons, this 4.0% of GDP is more about keeping the MIC lobby happy and paying the AEI's bills than a search for international stability. This argument is less about spending the people's money better than it is about spending on expensive toys to "keep America safe."

Would we be getting a better return on our national security spending by sending a million new Peace Corps folks out into the world? Would we be better as taxpayers by disengaging from hostile regions (like the Arab-Muslim world) and making better use of domestic markets (for both supply and demand)? Or should we be encouraging the Defense Dept to be better stewards of its existing budget share by investing in leaner, meaner, and more innovative production processes and technologies? Both of the latter choices would at least have spin-off benefits into US companies and US civilian manufacturing rather than simply making GenDyn, L-M, and L3 stockholders richer from foreign entanglements.

Now, I realize we can't disengage from the world, but let's play smarter rather than harder. Let's spend my money better, rather than simply spending more of it.

You got Edwin Feulner's name wrong. It's Feulner with an "F", not Deulner. He's the president of the Heritage Foundation. Plus, it's reprinted right there in the WSJ column. I honestly have no idea how you got this wrong (twice!)

Please fix these kind of mistakes so I can take your blog more seriously.

All true.

But battleships are really cool.

It seems many are rather sanguine about the long-term prospects of future potential Great Power conflict. This is a real concern and one that should not be pooh poohed because it is difficult to envisage today.

Prudential statescraft means paying attention and doing the most one can to be prepared for a multiplicity of possible problems. The U.S., despite its fiscal and deficit problems, is still the only nation in the world with the ability to act as the grand stabilizer of the world and prevent likely regional arms races (which will probably within a couple of decades include numerous overtly and latently nuclear armed states). While this will only (and can only be) a relative stability, that is still quit relevant.

Waiting for the fires of the future to emerge and then increasing defense spending does not seem prudent IF we have the capacity to prevent them in the first place. I think that is the point of the "Defending Defense" piece.

Do we want to tempt fate that we have entered a true "post-Great Power" era? Or have we just had what amounts to a vacation from real history?

If the former, then by all means we should slash defense spending and redirect towards our more "socially conscious" spending programs. If the latter, however, we could well replay less happy times in history where a power vacuum invites serious competition and serious conflict unlike that we have grown accustomed to post 1989.

I could see about 300-350 billion dollar cuts in DOD with equanimity (granted, I'd like to some a little spending on energy research and conservation that leads away from colonizing the Middle East until the end of time.) I think the obstacle is not that Republicans in Washington really feel a need for a $700 billion defense establishment per se -- it's that a large defense bill seems essential for maintaining the fiscal tension that keeps the White House from drastically increasing Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs Republicans don't approve of.

But I'm 63. What would I know?

While you don't say so, your argument implies that while today's threats aren't big, the Soviet Union was a real threat. IMHO we've learned the Soviet Union was never quite the threat our cold warriors believed. From the bomber gap of the mid 50's, through JFK's missile gap through the various alarms of the 70's and 80's (Team B, etc.) the USSR seems not to have had the strength we thought.

On the other hand, it seems both liberals and conservatives overestimated the unity of the USSR and the power of the people at the top. Perhaps all along our greatest threat was from the ineptitude and bureaucratic maneuvering of elements of the Soviet military establishment. ( I'm having a senior moment, forgetting the title of the recent book on 1980's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in the USSR--but it's good, and unforgettable.)

Ever since 9/11 the Right (and too much of the unthinking center and left) have been urgently depicting the current threat environment as a "war." Counterterrorism is not a war, and it's counterproductive to think of it in those terms. Self-styled national security experts who speaks in those terms do not know their business. In today's world the military has virtually no meaningful role in "defending America's interests around the world." America's interests blend into the world's interests, for the most part -- what's the military dimension to the trade, currency, and global financial issues that confront us?

The third possibility is that the Neocons are correct - in ways that they may not happen to express very convincingly - about the worsening threat environment (mainly due to ever more miniaturized and mobile weapons technologies) and about the heightened vulnerability of ever more globalized trade and supply, but that they are wrong about the best practical response. Efforts should focus on 1) a transitional military posture including heightened burden-sharing, and 2) enhanced elasticity and reserve capacities to limit the effects of disruption and therefore the motivation to seek it. Permanently tasking the US military to do EVERYTHING at ever greater expense may tend to achieve the opposite effects.

The “successful business model” of Somali pirates is prompting more and more of the country’s young men to take part in hijacking ships, according to the commander of Nato’s anti-piracy operations.

Rear Admiral Hank Ort, of the Netherlands Navy, said the lure of easy riches and absence of other opportunities was increasing the number of Somali pirates, who can expect an average $3.3m ransom for a ship.

Some invest their gains in better equipment allowing them to operate further out in the Indian Ocean.

This year, a ship was captured 1,300 nautical miles (2,400 nautical km) off Somalia’s coast, the most distant successful attack.

“It’s a successful business model for them,” said Adm Ort.

“There are lots of youths that can be hired to engage in this and they have very little alternative. That explains why the pirate activity is growing.”

There have been 125 attempted hijackings off the Somali coast this year with 34 vessels seized, according to the International Maritime Bureau, compared with 168 and 32 respectively between January and September last year.

However, Adm Ort said Nato’s naval forces had almost entirely stopped successful hijackings in the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia, once the prime spot for piracy. Nearly all ships seized in the area had failed to follow advice on making ships hard to board, or to register their presence with international forces.

Attacks in the 2.6m sq miles (8.8m sq km) of Indian Ocean within range of the pirates were a much greater challenge, said Adm Ort. Responding to a distress call within an hour in this area of ocean would require 83 warships each with a helicopter.

However, Adm Ort said: “Because of improvement in co-ordination between the military efforts and the availability of intelligence about what is happening ashore and at sea, we have been able to put resources in to disrupt pirate groups in larger numbers.

“We are stabilising the situation.”
Source : FT

Significant cuts in the defence budget will doubtless lead to even more unemployment in the United States. In the Midas Touch (!989), Anthony Sampson touched on the past reluctance of Washington to reduce spending on the military; Sampson observed then that many of the big US defence manufacturers were looking for alternative products and markets, but had great difficulty in finding consumer needs in a market-place which already appeared close to saturation.

Nevertheless governments everywhere are tempted into all sorts of risky job creation projects, if they can't export their unemployment commercially. Populous nations are the worst.

The host of next month's G20, South Korea, is hoping that policy recommendations will come out of the ongoing review into global finance.

I like how people get uppity at a misspelling of a name. BECAUSE THAT NEVER HAPPENS ANYWHERE ELSE, EVER, AND IT MATERIALLY CHANGES THE CONTENT. (besides, d and f are right by each other)

For the sake of comparison, there is one nice thing about the problems we now face: everyone in the free world is seemingly facing the same problems.

The Cold was the USA vs. the Soviet Union engaged in proxy wars in various areas, so outside of these immediate areas, most other locations were left to deal with the problems of the cold war (aka falling to communists) with covert assistance, not full military campaigns.

While it may be overly naive of me to say, I'll say it anyhow: the US did more than its fair share of the heavy lifting (AKA deficit spending) during the cold war and really, it was our ability to take out loans on our good name that the Soviet Union just couldn't keep up with.

For the sake of our financial health, I hope the current and future administrations understand that the current problems cannot be solved by unlimited spending.

First off, China holds a large amount of our debt, so its a bad idea to engage us militarily if they want to keep those interest payments coming. So, China as a threat is much lower than it would be thought because I doubt any businessman who so awesomely keeps their currency cheap, would want to sabotage their own investment portfolio. This may hamstring us in the future, but its kind of a stalemate because they don't want lose the amount of money invested here either. Thus, I see an uneasy peace between the US and its allies with China. Sure, there will be flareups because what rising power wants to be kept on a leash? But, our debt to China is a double edged sword which actually looks pretty smart for security purposes. I find it funny that military action against China could be paid by China, LOL. That is hilarious to me.

So, I'd say the threat of piracy and terrorism are things which ALL players have in common (well besides the appearance of state sponsored activity in Pakistan) thus, its in everyone's best interest to try and come to some sort of unilateral approach.

By Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service, Oct. 6, 2010

"Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III today reiterated the need for efficiencies as a way to keep the military strong during tight economic times. The first three prior significant transitions came after the World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars, he said, and the last came when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union dissolved. The department has taken three main lessons from the past transitions, Lynn said. The first is to make the hard decisions early, because the budget situation is not going to get better, and resources will be fewer. Second, he said, it’s not possible to generate the savings the department needs via 'pure efficiencies' -- doing the same things with less money. The department has to approach the efficiencies in a balanced way and cannot take the majority of money from operations or modernization accounts, Lynn said."