How about $1.2 Trillion ?

The Real U.S. National Security Budget 
The Figure No One Wants You to See 
By Chris Hellman
What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.
Welcome to the world of the real U.S. national security budget.  Normally, in media accounts, you hear about the Pentagon budget and the war-fighting supplementary funds passed by Congress for our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  That already gets you into a startling price range -- close to $700 billion for 2012 -- but that’s barely more than half of it.  If Americans were ever presented with the real bill for the total U.S. national security budget, it would actually add up to more than $1.2 trillion a year.

Take that in for a moment.  It’s true; you won’t find that figure in your daily newspaper or on your nightly newscast, but it’s no misprint.  It may even be an underestimate.  In any case, it’s the real thing when it comes to your tax dollars.  The simplest way to grasp just how Americans could pay such a staggering amount annually for “security” is to go through what we know about the U.S. national security budget, step by step, and add it all up.
So, here we go.  Buckle your seat belt: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Fortunately for us, on February 14th the Obama administration officiallyreleased its Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget request.  Of course, it hasn’t been passed by Congress -- even the 2011 budget hasn’t made it through that august body yet -- but at least we have the most recent figures available for our calculations.
For 2012, the White House has requested $558 billion for the Pentagon’s annual “base” budget, plus an additional $118 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  At $676 billion, that’s already nothing to sneeze at, but it’s just the barest of beginnings when it comes to what American taxpayers will actually spend on national security.  Think of it as the gigantic tip of a humongous iceberg.
To get closer to a real figure, it’s necessary to start peeking at other parts of the federal budget where so many other pots of security spending are squirreled away.
Missing from the Pentagon’s budget request, for example, is an additional $19.3 billion for nuclear-weapons-related activities like making sure our current stockpile of warheads will work as expected and cleaning up the waste created by seven decades of developing and producing them.  That money, however, officially falls in the province of the Department of Energy.  And then, don’t forget an additional $7.8 billion that the Pentagon lumps into a “miscellaneous” category -- a kind of department of chump change -- that is included in neither its base budget nor those war-fighting funds.
So, even though we’re barely started, we’ve already hit a total official FY 2012 Pentagon budget request of:
$703.1 billion dollars.
Not usually included in national security spending are hundreds of billions of dollars that American taxpayers are asked to spend to pay for past wars, and to support our current and future national security strategy.
For starters, that $117.8 billion war-funding request for the Department of Defense doesn’t include certain actual “war-related fighting” costs.  Take, for instance, the counterterrorism activities of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. For the first time, just as with the Pentagon budget, the FY 2012 request divides what’s called "International Affairs" in two: that is, into an annual "base" budget as well as funding for "Overseas Contingency Operations" related to Iraq and Afghanistan.  (In the Bush years, these used to be called the Global War on Terror.)  The State Department’s contribution? $8.7 billion.  That brings the grand but very partial total so far to:
$711.8 billion.
The White House has also requested $71.6 billion for a post-2001 category called “homeland security” -- of which $18.1 billion is funded through the Department of Defense. The remaining $53.5 billion goes through various other federal accounts, including the Department of Homeland Security ($37 billion), the Department of Health and Human Services ($4.6 billion), and the Department of Justice ($4.6 billion). All of it is, however, national security funding which brings our total to:
$765.3 billion.
The U.S. intelligence budget was technically classified prior to 2007, although at roughly $40 billion annually, it was considered one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington. Since then, as a result of recommendations by the 9/11 Commission, Congress has required that the government reveal the total amount spent on intelligence work related to the National Intelligence Program (NIP).
This work done by federal agencies like the CIA and the National Security Agency consists of keeping an eye on and trying to understand what other nations are doing and thinking, as well as a broad range of “covert operations” such as those being conducted in Pakistan. In this area, we won’t have figures until FY 2012 ends. The latest NIP funding figure we do have is $53.1 billion for FY 2010.  There’s little question that the FY 2012 figure will be higher, but let’s be safe and stick with what we know.  (Keep in mind that the government spends plenty more on “intelligence.”  Additional funds for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP), however, are already included in the Pentagon’s 2012 base budget and war-fighting supplemental, though we don’t know what they are. The FY 2010 funding for MIP, again the latest figure available, was $27 billion.)  In any case, add that $53.1 billion and we’re at:
$818.4 billion.
Veterans programs are an important part of the national security budget with the projected funding figure for 2012 being $129.3 billion. Of this, $59 billion is for veterans’ hospital and medical care, $70.3 billion for disability pensions and education programs. This category of national security funding has been growing rapidly in recent years because of the soaring medical-care needs of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars. According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, by 2020 total funding for health-care services for veterans will have risen another 45%-75%.  In the meantime, for 2012 we’ve reached:
$947.7 billion.
If you include the part of the foreign affairs budget not directly related to U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other counterterrorism operations, you have an additional $18 billion in direct security spending.  Of this, $6.6 billion is for military aid to foreign countries, while almost $2 billion goes for “international peacekeeping” operations. A further $709 million has been designated for countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, combating terrorism, and clearing landmines planted in regional conflicts around the globe.  This leaves us at:
$965.7 billion.
As with all federal retirees, U.S. military retirees and former civilian Department of Defense employees receive pension benefits from the government. The 2012 figure is $48.5 billion for military personnel, $20 billion for those civilian employees, which means we’ve now hit:
$1,034.2 billion. (Yes, that’s $1.03 trillion!)
When the federal government lacks sufficient funds to pay all of its obligations, it borrows. Each year, it must pay the interest on this debt which, for FY 2012, is projected at $474.1 billion.  The National Priorities Project calculates that 39% of that, or $185 billion, comes from borrowing related to past Pentagon spending.
Add it all together and the grand total for the known national security budget of the United States is:
$1,219.2 billion.  (That’s more than $1.2 trillion.)
A country with a gross domestic product of $1.2 trillion would have the 15th largest economy in the world, ranking between Canada and Indonesia, and ahead of Australia, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia.  Still, don’t for a second think that $1.2 trillion is the actual grand total for what the U.S. government spends on national security. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once famously spoke of the world’s “known unknowns.”  Explaining the phrase this way: “That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know.” It’s a concept that couldn’t apply better to the budget he once oversaw.  When it comes to U.S. national security spending, there are some relevant numbers we know are out there, even if we simply can’t calculate them.
To take one example, how much of NASA’s proposed $18.7 billion budget falls under national security spending? We know that the agency works closely with the Pentagon. NASA satellite launches often occur from the Air Force’s facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Air Force has its own satellite launch capability, but how much of that comes as a result of NASA technology and support?  In dollars terms, we just don’t know.
Other “known unknowns” would include portions of the State Department budget. One assumes that at least some of its diplomatic initiatives promote our security interests. Similarly, we have no figure for the pensions of non-Pentagon federal retirees who worked on security issues for the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, or the Departments of Justice and Treasury. Nor do we have figures for the interest on moneys borrowed to fund veterans’ benefits, among other national security-related matters. The bill for such known unknowns could easily run into the tens of billions of dollars annually, putting the full national security budget over the $1.3 trillion mark or even higher.
There’s a simple principle here.  American taxpayers should know just what they are paying for.  In a restaurant, a customer would be outraged to receive a check almost twice as high as the menu promised.  We have no idea whether the same would be true in the world of national security spending, because Americans are never told what national security actually means at the cash register.
Christopher Hellman is communications liaison at the National Priorities Project in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was previously a military policy analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Defense Information, and spent 10 years on Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer working on national security and foreign policy issues. He is aTomDispatch regular and a frequent media commentator on military planning, policy, and budgetary issues. To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Hellman explains how he arrived at his staggering numbers, click here, or download it to your iPod here.
[Note on Sources: The press release from the Office of The Director of National Intelligence disclosing the Fiscal Year 2010 $53 billion intelligence budget consists of 138 words and no details, other than that the office will disclose no details. It can be found by clicking here (.pdf file).  An October 2010 analysis by the Congressional Budget Office entitled "Potential Costs of Veterans' Health Care" projects rapid cost growth for Veterans Administration services over the next decade as a result of spiraling health care costs. To read the full report, click here (.pdf file).  To see all the federal agencies that contribute to homeland security funding, click here (.pdf file)]
Copyright 2011 Christopher Hellman

The Big (Military) Taboo

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26kristof.html

December 25, 2010

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

¶We face wrenching budget cutting in the years ahead, but there’s one huge area of government spending that Democrats and Republicans alike have so far treated as sacrosanct.

¶It’s the military/security world, and it’s time to bust that taboo. A few facts:

¶• The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It says that we spend more than six times as much as the country with the next highest budget, China.

¶• The United States maintains troops at more than 560 bases and other sites abroad, many of them a legacy of a world war that ended 65 years ago. Do we fear that if we pull our bases from Germany, Russia might invade?

¶• The intelligence community is so vast that more people have “top secret” clearance than live in Washington, D.C.

¶• The U.S. will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined.

¶This is the one area where elections scarcely matter. President Obama, a Democrat who symbolized new directions, requested about 6 percent more for the military this year than at the peak of the Bush administration.

¶“Republicans think banging the war drums wins them votes, and Democrats think if they don’t chime in, they’ll lose votes,” said Andrew Bacevich, an ex-military officer who now is a historian at Boston University. He is author of a thoughtful recent book, “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War.”

¶The costs of excessive reliance on military force are not just financial, of course, as Professor Bacevich knows well. His son, Andrew Jr., an Army first lieutenant, was killed in Iraq in 2007.

¶Let me be clear: I’m a believer in a robust military, which is essential for backing up diplomacy. But the implication is that we need a balanced tool chest of diplomatic and military tools alike. Instead, we have a billionaire military and a pauper diplomacy. The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service — and that’s preposterous.

¶What’s more, if you’re carrying an armload of hammers, every problem looks like a nail. The truth is that military power often isn’t very effective at solving modern problems, like a nuclear North Korea or an Iran that is on the nuclear path. Indeed, in an age of nationalism, our military force is often counterproductive.

¶After the first gulf war, the United States retained bases in Saudi Arabia on the assumption that they would enhance American security. Instead, they appear to have provoked fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden into attacking the U.S. In other words, hugely expensive bases undermined American security (and we later closed them anyway). Wouldn’t our money have been better spent helping American kids get a college education?

¶Paradoxically, it’s often people with experience in the military who lead the way in warning against overinvestment in arms. It was President Dwight Eisenhower who gave the strongest warning: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” And in the Obama administration, it is Defense Secretary Robert Gates who has argued that military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny; it is Secretary Gates who has argued most eloquently for more investment in diplomacy and development aid.

¶American troops in Afghanistan are among the strongest advocates of investing more in schools there because they see firsthand that education fights extremism far more effectively than bombs. And here’s the trade-off: For the cost of one American soldier in Afghanistan for one year, you could build about 20 schools.

¶There are a few signs of hope in the air. The Simpson-Bowles deficit commission proposes cutting money for armaments, along with other spending. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled a signature project, the quadrennial diplomacy and development review, which calls for more emphasis on aid and diplomacy in foreign policy.

¶“Leading through civilian power saves lives and money,” Mrs. Clinton noted, and she’s exactly right. The review is a great document, but we’ll see if it can be implemented — especially because House Republicans are proposing cuts in the State Department budget.

¶They should remind themselves that in the 21st century, our government can protect its citizens in many ways: financing research against disease, providing early childhood programs that reduce crime later, boosting support for community colleges, investing in diplomacy that prevents costly wars.

¶As we cut budgets, let’s remember that these steps would, on balance, do far more for the security of Americans than a military base in Germany.

A Few Articles on War

• A Plan B For Afghanistan http://huff.to/abxkwk Just Say Now
• The Man Called Petraeus Launches His Campaign http://bit.ly/cwxh3a Breaking the withdrawal promise, fighting for a never ending war.
• Taking Afghanistan seriously http://bit.ly/dtvzTd Because serious people are never penalized for screw-ups.
• Why Petraeus Can't Make The Sale http://huff.to/be5lPX convert to FU's http://bit.ly/dpQkTQ Six months more is not a strategy

Jared Polis' Remarks in Support of Lee Amendment to Responsibly End the War in Afghanistan

Thursday, July 1, 2010
Representative Jared Polis

I rise today in support of the rule and in support of the Lee amendment to responsibly end the war in Afghanistan. There is a real terrorist threat to our country. But that threat does not emanate from Afghanistan, it emanates from al Qaeda—a stateless menace, a menace that will organize and set up wherever we are not. The ongoing and indefinite occupation in Afghanistan is not a constructive step toward the battle against the terrorist threat to this country. In fact, through the civilian casualties we only increase the pool of potential terrorists every day that we continue this occupation.

I strongly support this concept of allowing our funds only to be used for the orderly withdrawal of American troops from the country of Afghanistan. The mission, the challenge we have put before our men and women, is nearly a difficult and impossible challenge: to try to build a cohesive nation state out of a tribal nation, out of dealing with people in our own employ who are of dubious moral character, and continue to engage in the opium and drug trade to finance their related activities.

There is a difference between the ongoing battles and insurgency in Afghanistan and the terrorist threats to this nation. We should spare no expense in going after terrorists wherever they are, engaging in aggressive intelligence gathering operations and taking out the ability of terrorists to train. But the occupation of Afghanistan is not a constructive step to that end. Thank you.

Afghanistan and Pakistan - Sen. Mark Udall

Eight years after Afghanistan-based Al Qaeda terrorists plotted against the United States and attacked us on September 11th, Afghanistan and Pakistan remain the central front in the global fight against Islamic extremism. While our men and women in uniform have courageously met the challenges they have faced, the fact is that the previous Administration took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan.

In December 2009, with security deteriorating in the region, President Obama announced a new way forward - one that signals to the Afghan and Pakistani governments that they must step up to meet their commitments and that our own military commitment to Afghanistan is not open-ended. Although there are no easy or risk-free choices, the President has made a reasoned case for a strategy to refocus our attention on rooting out Al Qaeda, stabilizing the region, and beginning to transition our forces out of Afghanistan.

We all recognize that there is no purely military solution to this conflict. I have long called for increasing troops in Afghanistan, boosting the number of military trainers to build the Afghan Security Forces, and for a civilian surge.
President Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan embraces these goals. It also recognizes that achieving the "core objective" - disrupting, dismantling, and defeating Al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and preventing their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan - means an international commitment to building security, improving governance, and fostering development.

Afghanistan is where Al Qaeda plotted its 9/11 attacks against us. We can't afford for it to become a haven for terrorists to attack Americans again - and we can't afford for nuclear weapons in Pakistan to fall into the wrong hands.

As we move forward, I intend to keep our mission in Afghanistan focused on achievable and specific goals that rely not only on our military power but on diplomacy and civilian expertise. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am working across the aisle to do what Coloradans elected me to do - support responsible strategies that will ensure our nation is safe.

http://markudall.senate.gov/?p=issue&id=5

Netroots Nation 2010, Las Vegas

The quiet tapping of the progressive blogosphere on its computer keyboards keep rhythm with the speakers at Netroots Nations, which has convened in Las Vegas 7/21/10-7/25/10. The 2,500 or so participants who have 10s of millions of daily page views greatly influence the country’s thinking. The participants inhale information in the workshops and information sessions and almost instantaneously exhale it in tweets, blog posts and Face Book entries. Panels comprised of unlikely environmentalists discuss global warming; senior journalists recite investigative sources of information; techie consultants describe how to redesign your website; and media consultants share tips on writing persuasive op-ed pieces. The purpose? To positively influence the country by fact checking assertions of the press, investigating issues to reveal corruption in our political operatives, support non-profits who care about justice, peace, civil liberties, civil rights, and the environment; among other topics.

Five years after Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos) started the conference as Yearly Kos, the initial gathering morphed into Netroots Nation. As the day closes with the progressive blogosphere passionately firing off the last of its day’s missives to its preferred social media outlets, the writers take their tired fingers and brains to the clubs and bars to socialize and network with each other. It is a sweet time.

Submitted by Marta Turnbull 7/24/10

Some Reasons We Participate in Peace Rallies

We have been holding weekly peace rallies for over four and a half years. Why do we meet at busy intersections every week to hold peace and anti-war signs? Below are some of the reasons that motivate our activists.

“I cannot remain silent any longer.” The government administrations of Bush and Obama did not and are not listening. The wars must be stopped now; and torture is unacceptable. It is un-American.

We must build a world beyond war. War is obsolete. It is so destructive and expensive that we humans can no longer afford to continue on this path. The weapons and other technological military developments have made it possible to destroy human and other life on Earth. We must change the way we think about conflict resolution and fundamentally act in a way to prevent and avoid war. I must give this message to my fellow Americans.

“We should go to war only as a last resort.” The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did not meet this criterion. They should not have been started; and we should bring our troops home now.

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” We should promote peace in the world, not initiate wars. Making peace is not just morally sound; it is practical and a heck of a lot cheaper—in lives and in dollars. This is a meme that needs to be spread.

I am appalled at our country’s war-mongering behavior. Launching the war in Afghanistan after 9/11 was ill conceived and naive. Did our preeminent thinkers really believe a war was the best approach to dealing with terrorists, who fight using guerrilla tactics and win converts by preaching radically conservative religious principles?

Holding signs each week feels like going to church. I am standing up for my deeply held beliefs. I want to help others feel empowered to talk about peace. Children riding in cars passing through our intersections ask their parents about our signs. I love that they are talking together about peace.

“The war is bankrupting our nation.” We have spent over $997B (http://costofwar.com/) to date. Our debt is directly linked to the funds wasted on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Our priorities are all wrong. We could have easily paid for universal health care and other domestic programs if we brought our troops home and stopped funding the ridiculously huge military industrial complex. We should invest in job growth, deploying renewable energy products, educating our youth and providing health and social services to our people.

Even today, do any of us really know the reason our country, while barely under way in Afghanistan, invaded Iraq? It could have been to gain control of the oil fields, and/or establish military bases from which to initiate future military actions in Central Asia. Perhaps Bush was hoping his presidency in history would be known as an administration that won wars. Instead it destabilized the region. I can’t sit back and watch this anymore. I must do something.

What is your reason for opposing war in general and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars in particular?

Submitted by Marta Turnbull 6/5/2010