Paying The Price

As I've said previously, expanding the number of soldiers in the Army is a reasonable idea. But it's also a very expensive proposition: "every 10,000 new soldiers add about $1.2 billion in personnel costs to the Pentagon’s annual budget. On top of that, equipment for 10,000 new troops would cost an additional $2 billion, according to Army statistics." What's more, we're not talking about 10,000 new troops:

Instead, civilian and military officials said, they are drawing up tentative proposals that would make permanent the 30,000-troop temporary increase approved by Congress after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and then add 30,000 more troops to the Army over the next five years, resulting in an active-duty Army with 542,400 soldiers by 2012.

So this is a $19.2 billion annual commitment that we should probably round up to more like $20 billion since unless you want standards to drop you're going to have increased recruiting expenditures. Under the circumstances, I just can't see the case for an increase of that scale in the defense budget which is already giant in a global context. You could easily find the money by cutting back other DOD programs, and that kind of shift in resources would be a good idea. It's pretty clear, though, that the driving force behind embrace of this idea is mostly about politics and posturing rather than a serious effort to set priorities so I think pessimism is warranted.

Comments

I don't think that 20 billion is too much money compared to the whole defense budget and other weapon systems. Moreover, if you intent to fight the wars you ve been fighting recently, the numbers seem low to me.

Either way, the costs of additional manpower can be covered by abolishing expensive and needless arm systems, but I think this is a tough thing politically, as the nexus between politicians, business and local communities is very very strong.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | December 25, 2006 12:00 PM

I'm not clear about whether this post is expressing a normative statement about the relative importance of expanding the Army, or just a positive statement about the politics of the matter. Seems the beginning of the post is the forme while the end of the post is the latter. In any case, I was just trying to get a sense of Matthew's priorities, here. A couple of days ago, he agreed with Krugman that balanced budgets are a second level priority (or maybe third, but let's call it second). So is it that Matthew thinks that expanding the Army is on the third (or even lower) tier - something that he wouldn't advocate crowding out domestic priorities for, but also that he would not advocate deficit spending for?

Secondly, why does Matthew think that expanding the Army is a good idea in the first place (which he seems to think, at least if the resources could be found by cutting other DoD programs)? In practice, his political philosophy by now is pretty antithetical to using the Army, um, mostly ever, right? I mean, for what purpose would Matthew ever advocate the use of a larger Army, given that (if I read the posts right) he pretty much opposes every deployment of US forces since who-knows-when, other than Afghanistan. Obviously I haven't read the book, but what comes through to me from the blog is basically isolationist/let-international-institutions-handle-it. And certainly if that is the philosophy we don't need a bigger Army.

Posted by Al | December 25, 2006 12:27 PM

Unless and until we start thinking a lot more clearly about how to use the military, its expansion ought to be off the table. When military resources are plentiful they get used carelessly. Iraq is a perfect expample of this. The last thing our inane political culture should be given is more men and weapons to play around with.

Posted by Kafka | December 25, 2006 12:48 PM

what comes through to me from the blog is basically isolationist/let-international-institutions-handle-it

Another way of describing this might be, "the foreign policy philosophy of most people in the United States."

I realize that's of no nevermind to Al, given his hatred and fear of Americans. But it's something that's good for the rest of us to keep in mind.

Posted by grh | December 25, 2006 1:12 PM

If those cost estimates are correct the average cost to recruit, sign and equip an additional soldier is $320,000?! That's a lot of $500 toilet seats...

Posted by Steve | December 25, 2006 1:34 PM

Steve: "average cost to recruit, sign and equip an additional soldier is $320,000?!"

I don't think that is so outrageous, really. A lot of private companies use a figure of $200K per annum or more for budgeting employee slots, and they don't provide extensive logistics support, move their people all over the globe, or have tanks and artillery, ships and planes, rifles and rockets.

Recruiting an additional 10,000 into the Army probably entails contracting the services of at least 3000 civilian support personnel.

Posted by Bruce Wilder | December 25, 2006 2:05 PM

I'm with Kafka. A country that is capable of giving two terms to the likes of Dubya doesn't deserve to be trusted with an even more massive offensive capability.

It's a waste of money anyway. In a time when guerrilla warfare reigns supreme, we're looking at one Vietnam after another if we try to use military occupation as a policy option.

Posted by jimBOB | December 25, 2006 3:25 PM

Expanding the army will take years, so its not really relevant to Iraq. Bush screwed up by not calling for the draft after 9/11. Congress would have given it to him and he'd now have plenty of manpower to surge in Iraq. But he didn't (but he did ask us to shop!), so we're SOL in Iraq.

Gary Hart made the point years ago that the personnel cost of a reservist is far lower than an active duty soldier. If the basis of our military was a Swiss (or Israeli) style military, we could have a small expeditionary force (oh, let's call it "the Marine Corps) and a far larger reserve army composed of National guard divisions available to deploy. It would be much cheaper than mantaining a standing army that mostly, well, stands around in peacetime.

OK, using reservists (especially draftees) would make it difficult to garner political support for preemptive wars or long military occupations, but that's a feature, not a bug.

Posted by beowulf | December 25, 2006 3:46 PM

While it may "only" cost the Army $100,000 a year more per additional soldier...it costs the Army about $800,000 per year to station that soldier in Iraq.

When is the Army going to revisit the failed privitization of its combat support services?

Privitization was supposed to save the Amry money during peacetime.

If we are indeed in a long war, the Army could gain additional troops and save money at the same time by doing for itself what it now pays private companies to do.

Posted by a | December 25, 2006 8:52 PM

Privatization "supposed to" save money or make money?

You have to be awfully earnest and naive, after witnessing the corruption and incompetence of the Bush Administration, to think that their conduct of the Iraq War, of extensive privatization of support services and general neglect of contracting procedures is "supposed to" do anything, but make money for Republican patrons in the Military-Industrial Complex.

Posted by Bruce Wilder | December 25, 2006 9:42 PM

That was my point, Bruce.

The money is already in the Defense budget to hire the additional troops it wants if the Pentagon is willing to cut inefficient(in wartime) private contractors.

As a side bonus, the Pentagon would gain the support of people who view it as one giant pork trough if they cut these programs.

In addition, the U.S. military is currently burning through about 15% of America's domestic oil production every year...mainly because they fly a lot of things that could go by boat much cheaper...

If we could have fought two wars at the same time under Clinton's $286 billion Defense budget, why can't we fight one war now with an almost $600 billion Defense budget?

Posted by alphie | December 25, 2006 9:54 PM