Obama and the 100,000

I see a fair number of people, including Brian Beutler, disquieted by Barack Obama's call for the addition of 92,000 ground soldiers to the American military. It's important to note that this has become pretty much a standard Democratic policy proposal and I'm not sure it differentiates Obama from anyone of the main legislative leaders or other presidential candidates. As to the merits of the plan, well, it depends. 100,000 more soldiers instead of . . . what? If at the margin we're trading away F-22s, Osprey helicopters, DD(X) destroyers, etc. in exchange for additional troops, that's a perfectly good idea. It would be a great idea to do what Obama proposes in regard to reducing our nuclear spending and use that money to finance additional boots on the ground. By contrast, however, further restraint in domestic discretionary spending in order to finance further increases in defense spending is a bad idea.

At the end of the day, the Pentagon doesn't really "need" more troops. The US military, however, has the luxury of operating well beyond the margins of strict necessity. More troops would be useful. They could guard refugee camps in Chad, keep girls' schools open in rural Afghanistan, let National Guard soldiers stay home with their families ready to respond to natural disasters, help monitor cease-fire lines in Congo, etc., etc., etc. If you're worried that more troops would be used for occupation duty in Teheran I think that's a smart worry, but the solution is to elect a president who won't invade Iran. As we've seen in Iraq, an absence of logistical capabilities won't stop a bad president from launching an unwise invasion.

The problem with the proposal is that "useful" is a low bar to pass. We have way more conventional military firepower than we need and way, way, way more nukes than we need. Restraining that stuff to free up money for more soldiers is change int he right direction. But we have less health care, less education, less child care, less basic infrastructure, etc., etc., etc. than we need. Cutting back there to further incease the capabilities of what's already the most capable military on the planet by a long margin doesn't make sense.

Comments

In my opinion what's desperately needed is for someone a lot more mainstream than the likes of Kucinich to move this debate out from between the 40 yard lines- where MY is also still firmly stuck- and start openly questioning what maintining our empire, with its requirement for a hugely bloated military, actually does for (or more realistically, to) the ordinary voter in this country. People will listen to that message if it's presented clearly by someone with credibility. The level of militarization our society has reached is way out of line with our whole history and best traditions, and I think there is a widespread current of uneasiness about this- brought closer to the surface by the Iraq debacle- that is waiting to be tapped.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | April 25, 2007 1:13 PM

The military is the only social welfare program you can join in this country without being stigmatized. If it actually delivers the health care, education, and skills training it is supposed to, I'm not necessarily against expanding it, although I think you should be able to gain access to those things without wearing a uniform.

Also, I hate to threadjack, but did anyone read MoDo's incoherent column on the Obamas today? It made absolutely no sense, even by her standards. It's like she accidentally spiked her morning Cosmo with her bottle of red hair dye.

Posted by Philly | April 25, 2007 1:16 PM

I'd like this proposal better if it came with a promise to do away with the missile defense program--a useless, incredibly expensive boondoggle if there ever was one.

Posted by beckya57 | April 25, 2007 1:23 PM

Philly explains in two sentences what is wrong with this picture. All that is really necessary to add is that the military do not deliver the health care, skills training, and education they promise, and, as anyone who has lived near a military base can attest, enlisted personnel have a culture that is very good at taking the direction of events out of the hands of officers.

Which means you end up with a totally dependent class of poorly paid and housed soldiers and their families, resentful of civilians, and determined not to be "bossed around" by the people hired to be their bosses. And quite justifiably angry about the bait-and-switch tactics the military uses to avoid paying bonuses, educational benefits, or providing healthcare.

For 50 years our major problems in the world have been created by our belief that we could solve some previous problem by military force or the threat of military force. Adding more soldiers won't help.

Posted by serial catowner | April 25, 2007 1:35 PM

Re: "I'd like this proposal better if it came with a promise to do away with the missile defense program--a useless, incredibly expensive boondoggle if there ever was one."

Hey, that's my job you're talking about! Can't we instead cut back on the F-22s, Osprey helicopters, DD(X) destroyers, etc., like Matt suggested?

Posted by Jim W | April 25, 2007 2:05 PM

They could guard refugee camps in Chad, keep girls' schools open in rural Afghanistan, let National Guard soldiers stay home with their families ready to respond to natural disasters, help monitor cease-fire lines in Congo, etc., etc., etc.

They could even bake cookies for Hillary so she doesn't have to. Or rescue cute puppies from the pound. Or plant pretty flower gardens.

Seriously, Matt, there are a few things to remember:

1. Anyone who ever opposes an American military adventure is a dove (unless they're just doing it to spite Clinton.)

2. A major Democratic Party leadership faction, which has often been the controlling faction, has hated all doves for the past 35 years now.

3. "Doves" have nowhere to go but to the Democrats, but they cannot and should not trust the Democrats. The reasons for this go back 42 years.

Posted by John Emerson | April 25, 2007 2:06 PM

I'll also take exception to this: "As we've seen in Iraq, an absence of logistical capabilities won't stop a bad president from launching an unwise invasion."

What if, instead of having 150K soldiers readily available to invade Iraq, we only had 25K soldiers available? Then, the only way they could have pulled off the Iraq war would be to reinstate the draft. It wouldn't have happenned.

Of course we hope to elect presidents who are wise enough not to foolishly invade other countries. But, why not keep the military a little too small as an insurance policy?

Posted by Jim W | April 25, 2007 2:11 PM

Jim W --
25K, or even less, was just about Rumsfeld's original estimate for what it would take in Iraq.

Posted by SqueakyRat | April 25, 2007 2:43 PM

Can we outsource the military somewhere like we do with many other labor intensive jobs? Somehow I don't think that reorganizing our military from being high-tech, capital-intensive, relatively low-manpower institution to one with lots and lots of soldiers is a good idea in the long run.

Posted by MS | April 25, 2007 2:49 PM

Heh, which 92,000 additional Americans are going to enlist? The DC elite need to understand that no one is going to be willing to fight their hobby horse wars anymore.

Whatever. Not my problem.

Posted by Gary Sugar | April 25, 2007 2:52 PM

Yeah, I know the neocons were batting around the idea of doing it with about 40K or so troops. I'm sure lots of serious analysis went into it, too, of the kind only neocons are cabable. But, do you think they could have gotten the military to go along with it?

On the other hand, if they HAD gone in there with around 25K-40K troops, that would have been interesting. I doubt they could have even come close to reaching Baghdad.

Posted by Jim W | April 25, 2007 2:55 PM

Heh, which 92,000 additional Americans are going to enlist?

Well, Obama does have all those Facebook buddies he could ask.

Posted by beowulf | April 25, 2007 3:16 PM

Mr. Yglesias is fixated on the notion that we are planing to invade Iran. Not going to happen. The nuclear facilities will be bombed with whatever it takes to eliminate them. Iran with no nuclear capability is not much of a threat.

Posted by SLC | April 25, 2007 3:43 PM

Are you listening to your comments section? Expanding the size of the military is bad. Give them more tools, and they will be used. Badly. The money flow towards DoD needs to be reversed.

Posted by glasnost | April 25, 2007 3:43 PM

Oh, please. There are plenty of people who would sign on with the military if it was just a little more financially attractive. It really doesn't take much money to get people to risk their lives, especialy when you can offer some nonfinancial psychic rewards to go with the cash.

Posted by AlanC9 | April 25, 2007 3:44 PM

Furthermore: This:

100,000 more soldiers instead of . . . what? If at the margin we're trading away F-22s, Osprey helicopters, DD(X) destroyers, etc. in exchange for additional troops, that's a perfectly good idea.

Is pure clap harder thinking. I didn't hear Obama saying anything about "trading" anything. I sure as heck didn't here anything to be cut back, or that this would be revenue neutral. You might color me "skeptical" about that part.

So, your choice B:
But we have less health care, less education, less child care, less basic infrastructure, etc., etc., etc. than we need. Cutting back there to further incease the capabilities of what's already the most capable military on the planet by a long margin doesn't make sense.

Is, until proven otherwise, Barack Obama's plan. Unless, of course, option C: indefinite deficit spending, is the popular alternative?

Posted by glasnost | April 25, 2007 3:46 PM

Iran not a threat, SLC? You think they couldn't blow our position in Iraq straight to hell?

Posted by AlanC9 | April 25, 2007 3:46 PM

If we stay in Iraq, an increase of 92K is nowhere near enough to
achieve anything useful. If we get out Iraq, that frees up roughly
350K troops which is plenty for any other realistic venture.
Bad idea all round. Cutting back to under 1000 nukes is a good
idea in every way though, and at least 15 years overdue.

Posted by Richard Cownie | April 25, 2007 3:49 PM

Surely all we need is 300?

Posted by otto | April 25, 2007 4:00 PM

I think adding more troops while cutting down on other types of military spending could be good for two reasons:

1) It makes the military more suitable for the purposes we can actually use it for. Fighting opposing armies in the field is not the current challenge.

2) Cutting the military budget is really hard. Here the Democrats should take a lesson about cutting government programs through subversion from the Republicans. The military-industrial complex is a tough lobbyist group to crack. You probably don't have the political capital to do it straight-up. So shift funds from R&D to troops first, which financially starves the companies doing the lobbying. This makes cutting the overall military budget later easier.

This may not be Obama's plan. But there is something else important to keep in mind: budget's rarely decrease, they usually only grow. So the only way to 'cut' funding is actually to stop growing it and let inflation and GDP growth do the trick. Yeah, I know a lot of people around here want to do more and Steve Labonne does have the right idea- moving the political discussion can help. Just don't start voting for Nader b/c the Democrats don't toe the line you want. The Republicans never had that problem.

Posted by mpowell | April 25, 2007 4:36 PM

Re AlanC9

Iran will be told that the attack on their nuclear facilities is only the opening salvo if they start anything in Iraq.

Posted by SLC | April 25, 2007 4:56 PM

We could cut our defense budget by 50% and have universal health care, universal education, and independence from foreign oil, and still spend more on the military than everyone else in the world put together.

Posted by croatoan | April 25, 2007 5:12 PM

I'd like this proposal better if it came with a promise to do away with the missile defense program--a useless, incredibly expensive boondoggle if there ever was one.

Problem is that practically no "bigger army" advocate mentions trade-offs like this. Obama certainly didn't. And anyway, once you get into the realm of "cut boondoggle X, and then I'll go along with your bigger army idea", you've already ceded the really important question -- what the hell are we going to do with this bigger, better army?

Steve LaBonne, above, lays out pretty well where the discussion really needs to go. So far no national-level Dem wants to go near those questions -- which makes it very difficult for me to get all that enthused about them. Hell, I'd be happy if, say, Obama or Edwards mentioned the name "Bacevich". But I don't see it happening.....

Posted by sglover | April 25, 2007 5:34 PM

You can have my F-22 Raptor when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I'm fine with knocking out every other piece of machinery, just not this cool-ass plane.

Posted by Cincinnatus | April 25, 2007 5:40 PM

Iran will be told that the attack on their nuclear facilities is only the opening salvo if they start anything in Iraq.

Hilarious. Let's see how tough you are when gas hits $5/gal, and the really big layoffs kick in.....

Posted by sglover | April 25, 2007 5:41 PM

1) I think most readers here do not realize the situation we are in. For the first time in 225 years of our republic, we have a huge standing army which in not balanced by any equivalent enemy. That same situation destroyed the Roman Republic --upon which our Constitution was designed.

2) The Founders of this country studied history , its lessons, the nature of power, and how power is controlled --or not. Yet in spite of our $1 Trillion+/year education budget, few of our citizens even realize the issue exists.

3) Perhaps it might be worth while to look at the Anti_Federalist Papers -- No. 25 , specifically. AKA Number 10 in the series written under the Alias "Brutus". A short excerpt:

***************
"24 January 1788
To the People of the State of New-York.
The liberties of a people are in danger from a large standing army, not only because the rulers may employ them for the purposes of supporting themselves in any usurpations of power, which they may see proper to exercise, but there is great hazard, that an army will subvert the forms of the government, under whose authority, they are raised, and establish one, according to the pleasure of their leader.

We are informed, in the faithful pages of history, of such events frequently happening. — Two instances have been mentioned in a former paper. They are so remarkable, that they are worthy of the most careful attention of every lover of freedom. — They are taken from the history of the two most powerful nations that have ever existed in the world; and who are the most renowned, for the freedom they enjoyed, and the excellency of their constitutions: — I mean Rome and Britain.

In the first, the liberties of the commonwealth was destroyed, and the constitution overturned, by an army, lead by Julius Cesar, who was appointed to the command, by the constitutional authority of that commonwealth. He changed it from a free republic, whose fame had sounded, and is still celebrated by all the world, into that of the most absolute despotism. A standing army effected this change, and a standing army supported it through a succession of ages, which are marked in the annals of history, with the most horrid cruelties, bloodshed, and carnage; — The most devilish, beastly, and unnatural vices, that ever punished or disgraced human nature.

The same army, that in Britain, vindicated the liberties of that people from the encroachments and despotism of a tyrant king, assisted Cromwell, their General, in wresting from the people, that liberty they had so dearly earned.

You may be told, these instances will not apply to our case: — But those who would persuade you to believe this, either mean to deceive you, or have not themselves considered the subject.

I firmly believe, no country in the world had ever a more patriotic army, than the one which so ably served this country, in the late war.

But had the General who commanded them, been possessed of the spirit of a Julius Cesar or a Cromwell, the liberties of this country, had in all probability, terminated with the war; or had they been maintained, might have cost more blood and treasure, than was expended in the conflict with Great-Britain. When an anonimous writer addressed the officers of the army at the close of the war, advising them not to part with their arms, until justice was done them — the effect it had is well known. It affected them like an electric shock. He wrote like Cesar; and had the commander in chief, and a few more officers of rank, countenanced the measure, the desperate resolution had been taken, to refuse to disband. What the consequences of such a determination would have been, heaven only knows. — The army were in the full vigor of health and spirits, in the habit of discipline, and possessed of all our military stores and apparatus. They would have acquired great accessions of strength from the country. — Those who were disgusted at our republican forms of government (for such there then were, of high rank among us) would have lent them all their aid. — We should in all probability have seen a constitution and laws, dictated to us, at the head of an army, and at the point of a bayonet, and the liberties for which we had so severely struggled, snatched from us in a moment. It remains a secret, yet to be revealed, whether this measure was not suggested, or at least countenanced, by some, who have had great influence in producing the present system. — Fortunately indeed for this country, it had at the head of the army, a patriot as well as a general; and many of our principal officers, had not abandoned the characters of citizens, by assuming that of soldiers, and therefore, the scheme proved abortive"
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Note: The "secret" referred to in the above paper was the 1783 Newburgh Mutiny -- the plot within the officer corps of the Continental Army to overthrow Congress if Congress welched on its promise to give the officers half-pay for life. The plot was promoted by Alexander Hamilton -- who should have had his brains blown out 20 years before Aaron Burr did us the favor.
George Washington intervened at the last moment to scotch the plot via a personal appeal to his officers.

A unit of the Continental Army actually surrounded Independence Hall here in Philadelphia and threatened to imprison Congress. After some congressional aides got the soldiers drunk, the Congress fled under cover of darkness to the protection of the Princeton New Jersey militia.

A piece of history that the gun control lobby doesn't like to acknowledge. There are good reasons for the Second Amendment -- just as there's a good reason why the Congress reduced the US Army in the 1780s to about 5 men serving as caretakers of the West Point armory.

Posted by Don Williams | April 25, 2007 6:52 PM

A piece of history that the gun control lobby doesn't like to acknowledge. There are good reasons for the Second Amendment...

I'm part of the gun control lobby, and I have absolutely no problem with my fellow citizens owning guns, and I indeed agree with the notion that an armed citizenry serves as a check against tyranny. I also think this need for a check against tyranny in no way obviates the feasibility of making it difficult for people who shouldn't own guns to own them. Upstanding, law-abiding citizens of sound mental state should be able to robustly exercise their 2nd amendment rights. Criminals, thugs and people with a sufficient degree of mental illness shouldn't.

Posted by Jasper | April 25, 2007 8:51 PM

And I would agree with you. The devil , of course, is in the details.

Some gun owners, for example, think that a registration database is a prelude to future confiscation.

Probably a workable compromise could be worked out if the debate was not so polarized -- and if some people did not have such strong interest in keeping that debate polarized.

Wayne LaPierre of the NRA , for example, doesn't have hard times when the gun lobby is ascendent in Washington and is putting up new laws. When that happens, Wayne's flush with money rolling in. Times are hard when the Republicans are in power and donations dry up because gun owners are complacent.

If you're a lobbyist, you don't want victory. You want eternal war.

Posted by Don Williams | April 25, 2007 10:41 PM

Our political culture precludes a rational discussion of budgetary trade-offs, which is why we're busy building a $600 million embassy in Iraq (for crying out loud). As long as the world is willing to extend us unlimited credit, why should our politicians bother with such mundane unpleasentries as fiscal responsiblity, trade-offs, and opportunity costs?

Posted by kafka | April 25, 2007 11:03 PM

I have heard Barack Obama talking about the need to repair our military and National guard like other democrats. I sometimes think the call for more troops may be to build back up the military and always for war purposes. For domestic reasons as well. Borders, ports, natural disasters, ect.
Not only that but, to repair everything. I seriously doubt his call for military things is due to making war as Obama is very much the diplomatic supporter and believes highly in this route. But, he also knows with the disrepair of our military and the fact that he wants us to be involved positively with the UN and be involved in the genocide of Darfur, ect., we need people for peacekeeping.
Military is not always a translation for war.
Many times it's for positive reasons and to help. Help with disasters in the world. Like tsunamis, ect. And to a large degree, though Obama was and is against this stupid war, he also feels we have some responsibility. It's like if your child went out and destroyed a neighbor's whatever and the parent is now stuck with the damages. Well, bush is the child who destroyed and we are holding the bag. We do, afterall, owe something to the innocent Iraqi's caught in this nightmare of everyday living. Turning our back and leaving them on their own is unforgivable. I hate this war and always have. but, I feel guilty as to what we have done to the iraqis and their country. We somehow have to make this right.

Posted by vwcat | April 25, 2007 11:23 PM

"Many times it's for positive reasons and to help. Help with disasters in the world. Like tsunamis, ect."

O......K.......

Obama wants to expand the US military by 100,000 soldiers to help with tsunamis.

1,400,000 active duty soldiers aren't enough for tsunamis.

Of course, the more parsimonious explanation is that Obama's foreign policy is significantly to the right of where you'd like it to be. But that's not the explanation you're going to settle upon, is it?

Like George Bush, you possess the ability to peer into a man's soul and know him. So you can explain away those pesky policies the man actually espouses.

Posted by Petey | April 25, 2007 11:33 PM

This is a disturbing tread. It is bothersome that no one seems to have gotten the actual point Obama was making. Adding 100K more boots on the ground is _necessary to fight the wars of the 21st century._ We can't fight agile, discursive forces of guerillas with the military we used to stand-off the Soviets. It won't work. In order to secure peace in this century we have to be able to put boots on the ground in certain situations. There is no way around this. You can't fight global terrorist networks with missle defense and the F-22. He is _clearly_ positioning himself to take on the Rumsfelding "military transformation" project -- the impetus behind all of the gadgetry spending and the reason the Army hates Don Rumsfeld, et. al. At the same time he's laying the ground work to end the permanent deployment of National Guard forces overseas (by getting out of Iraq and then actually staffing the Army to do the job the National Guard is having to do in its absence today.) That puts the NG back in country to do their other jobs -- first response to emergencies and the like.

And if you have to trade off a bit of social welfare spending along with the F-22 then so be it. National health care does you little good if people are blowing themselves up in your coffeeshops. It's almost like you guys don't believe there really are bad guys out there, assumedly because Bush has so badly misguided our efforts to date against them.

Posted by Sam Hutcheson | April 26, 2007 12:06 AM

"It's almost like you guys don't believe there really are bad guys out there, assumedly because Bush has so badly misguided our efforts to date against them."
---------
1) I believe there are some "bad guys" out there. What bothers me is that the "bad guys" seem to be telling the truth about what creates them -- whereas my President and national leaders have been lying through their teeth for years. It's one thing to suffer for the national interest -- it's something else to do so for a con game.

2) Bin Laden told US TV networks in 1998 why he was going to wage war on the USA: (a) Because the US killed 600,000 Iraqi children in the 1990s with sanctions on Iraq. (b)because the US government supports Israeli killing of Muslim Palestinians (c) because the US government has propped up the Saudi dictatorship for decades, inflicting great misery upon the Saudi people .

Re reason (a), US aid groups and the Red Cross have confirmed that Iraqi infant mortality rose sharply from waterborne disease (cholera,etc) after the US government bombed Iraqi water treatment plants in 1990 Desert Storm and then blocked the import of water purification chemicals in the 1990s. A rather nasty way of encouraging a revolt against Hussein.

Re reason (b), Ariel Sharon used US made F16s to bomb the Palestinians in May 2001. The State Department moved to protest but halted on orders from the White House. In spite of an uproar in the Middle East, Bush then sold Sharon another 52 F16s in June 2001. The Al Qaeda order to execute Sept 11 was issued in July 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani paper in Nov 2001, Bin Laden explicitly cited US sales of advanced weapons to Israel --and their use in killing Palestinians -- as justification for the Sept 11 attack.

Re reason (c), some of the US government's acts to keep the House of Saud in power are well known. The sale of advanced weapons systems, for example. Others are less known because of news media coverups. The US corporation hit in Al Qaeda bombings in Saudi Arabia a few years ago was a defense company know as Vanell Inc. Since the 1970s , Vanell mercanaries have transferred advanced US technology to the Saudi Gestapo in order to help the Saudi house keep the Saudi people in submission while US oil companies loot their desert country of its only asset -- with kickbacks going to the royal family.

3) Note that Bush said NOTHING about the above facts when he addressed the country after Sept 11. Instead, he gave us a bullshit lie about how the attack occurred "because they hate our freedom". The reason Bush didn't want to address Bin Laden's complaints is that doing so would reveal how the US government whores for special interests , how that whoring brings deep misery down upon people in the Middle East, and how that whoring provoked an attack that left 3000 US dead on Sept 11.

4) I believe that we have to kill the hardcore Al Qaeda cadre. But the way to do that is to encourage informers within the Islamic world to tell us where Al Qaeda is. But that won't happen because Bush, Cheney , and their Democratic enablers have given the entire Islamic World good reasons to hate us with an intense, unforgiving rage.

5) But US citizens also have good reasons to hate Bush, Cheney and their Democratic enablers with an intense , unforgiving rage. We have lost 6000+ dead, several $TRillion dollars,
and several civil liberties defined in the Bill of Rights. For no good reason -- simply due to the deceit of people who whore for billionaire patrons.

Posted by Don Williams | April 26, 2007 12:46 AM

I believe there are some "bad guys" out there. What bothers me is that the "bad guys" seem to be telling the truth about what creates them -- whereas my President and national leaders have been lying through their teeth for years.

Honestly, I don't know where to take this conversation from this point. Yes, the Bush admin are a bunch of corrupt and incompetent bastards but assigning truth value to al Queada is just insane. I honestly don't care why a bunch of mysogonistic religious fanatics want to blow up civilians. I honestly don't care why crazy people want to kill innocent people. Why doesn't matter. Killing civilians means you don't get to tell me about your percieved grievances.

You then go on for four more points all of which are reasons you hate Bush/Cheney, making you 0-5 in relating any of this to Obama's proposed troop levels for a 21st century army.

So again, I don't really know where to take this discussion from here.

Posted by Sam Hutcheson | April 26, 2007 9:45 AM

1) Re Sam's comment " Killing civilians means you don't get to tell me about your percieved grievances.".
--------

Posted by Don Williams | April 26, 2007 10:14 AM