“Defense” Spending: Time For More Than Cosmetic Cuts

Military expenditure as percent of GDP, data t...
Military expenditure as percent of GDP, data taken from the CIA factbook. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The US Army is on track to reduce its size from current levels (490,000 troops) to 450,000 in 2017 and 420,000 by 2019. In a July 24 editorial, the New York Times came out in mild support of the half-measure and against “maintaining bases and a level of troops that go beyond what the country needs and can afford.”

The Times doesn’t go far enough. The cuts are, at best, a good start. By any reasonable “need and affordability” standard, military (euphemistically referred to as “defense”) spending cuts should go far deeper. A worthwhile goal would be to cut US military spending by 75% between now and 2025.

If those cuts seem unduly deep, keep in mind that military spending is the single largest item in the federal budget, and that the US has now shouldered the burden of defending western Europe and the Pacific Rim since the end of World War II.

We’ve been waiting for our promised “peace dividend” for nearly a quarter of a century since the collapse of the  Warsaw Pact. It’s time to furl the US “defense umbrella” and let Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and other US clients assume responsibility for (and cover the costs of) their own defenses.

Through the first half of this decade, the partisan fight over military spending has devolved from an argument over how much to increase that spending (the Obama administration proposed 10% growth by 2018; congressional Republicans referred to that proposal as a “draconian cut” and demanded 18% growth) to acceptance of actual minor cuts. It’s time to take the next step.

A 75% reduction would still leave the US in the position of, by far, top military spender in the world (the cut would have to be more like 90% to match China, the second place spender). Given the American weapons technology edge, an existing arsenal that can be mothballed and re-activated at need, a reserve and National Guard system which can deliver well-trained troops on relatively short notice, and a buffer zone of two oceans between the US and its most likely future enemies, 25% of current spending levels would remain an embarrassment of riches.

Politicians of both parties perpetually promise balanced budgets — some day. They’ll never get there without first reining in a military-industrial complex which has sucked America’s economy dry for three quarters of a century now.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Police Violence: An Anti-Obscenity Proposal

NYPD Communications Division van #4018 at Hera...
NYPD Communications Division van #4018 at Herald Square. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s not surprising when Ed Mullins leaps to the defense of police officers accused of murder or other criminal abuses. After all, he’s president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, a New York City police union. Protecting cops is his job.

In a July 14 column for the New York Post, Mullins decries the city’s $5.9 million settlement with the family of Eric Garner, who died at the hands — literally, from a “chokehold” — of officer Daniel Pantaleo. The settlement, wrote Mullins, is “obscene.”

I agree with Mullins. It IS obscene. The taxpayers of New York City should never have been forced to compensate Garner’s family for his death. Those taxpayers didn’t kill Eric Garner. Daniel Pantaleo did.

Of course, Mullins wouldn’t agree with how I put that. He doesn’t call the settlement obscene because he wants Pantaleo to pay. He objects because taxpayer money paid to Pantaleo’s victims can’t be paid to members of the Sergeants Benevolent Association.

Still, I have to credit Mullins with inspiring my proposal for consideration by his association, by New York City, and by police unions and city governments everywhere: Insurance.

Yes, insurance. Cities should require every police officer in their employ to carry a $10 million liability policy for torts inflicted while on duty. Prosecuting cops for crimes committed in uniform is always a dicey proposition, but there’s no reason the civil end can’t work like any other insurance situation. There’s a claim. If it’s denied, there’s a lawsuit, a verdict or a settlement, and the insurer coughs up any damages instead of sticking the taxpayers with the check.

With unionized departments, of course, the insurance requirement will have to be negotiated into the labor contract. As will a clause making uninsurable cops subject to immediate dismissal from the force and ejection from the union.

If that sounds like a bitter pill for an Ed Mullins to swallow, here’s the sugar coating: There’s no reason the unions can’t provide the insurance policies themselves: Collect the premiums as part of each member’s union dues and set them aside in trust for rainy days when claims get paid. Eventually — if the actuaries get it right — profits will flow into the union’s general fund. That prospect should warm any union president’s heart.

An insurance scheme of this kind will also incentivize the thin blue line to police its own. If insurance premiums go up, cops and union reps will know which comrades to have a “come to Jesus” talk with.

Pandemic police violence is a problem that will be solved, one way or another. This is a way for Mullins to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Comey vs. Crypto: The Last Banzai Charge

 

Imperial Japanese Army soldiers give a banzai ...
Imperial Japanese Army soldiers give a banzai cheer. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the end of World War II, Second Lieutenant Hiro Onoda of the Imperial Japanese Army dismissed rumors of his country’s surrender, fading into the Philippine jungle to fight on.  He held out for 29 years before, still dressed in his dilapidated uniform, he surrendered his sword to his former commanding officer in 1974.

Every time an American politician or bureaucrat floats some cockamamie new scheme to ban, handicap or regulate strong encryption of computer data, I think of Onoda.

The Crypto Wars began in 1991 when Phil Zimmerman released the first version of PGP (“Pretty Good Privacy”), a tool that made strong encryption available to the masses worldwide. The wars essentially ended at the same time.  A few bitter dead-enders held out until the mid-1990s, firing off silly proposals for programs like the Clipper Chip and “key escrow,” but it quickly became apparent to most that the strong encryption genie isn’t going back into the bottle.

So here comes FBI director James Comey, waving a rusty samurai sword and screaming “banzai!” as he once again charges the enemy lines, 24 years after his side’s defeat.

Testifying before the US Senate’s intelligence committee in early July,  Comey trotted out the latest alleged threat —  Islamic State militants using strong crypto to protect their communications — and complained that “[i]n recent months … we have on a new scale seen mainstream products and services designed in a way that gives users sole control over access to their data.”

He says that like it’s a bad thing. It isn’t.

He envisions a “solution” in which software and communications providers use strong encryption that works, except when Comey wants to read your email. Even if empowering him to read your email wasn’t a very bad idea, no such solution exists.

A back door for James Comey is a back door for everyone else, too. If the encryption is broken, it’s broken.

The bad guys will always have encryption. Encryption is math and computer code. It’s free, it’s in the wild, and it will remain so. If American companies hobble their encryption, those who don’t like their encryption hobbled will get good crypto elsewhere. Shikata ga nai (“it can’t be helped”).

As for the rest of us, Comey tends toward the “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” line. Oddly, I never hear that line coming from him when Wikileaks, Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden reveal HIS organization’s secrets.

We use encryption for the same reason we put our snail mail in envelopes: We only want it to be read by the intended recipient. Dealing with that is Comey’s job. Catering to his voyeurism with “back doors” isn’t our obligation.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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