MOSCOW, June 28 (UPI) -- First of two parts
The Pentagon's budget equals half of the world's defense spending. Why is the United States spending so much on its military?
Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told a RIA Novosti correspondent that at the height of the Cold War in the 1950s the United States spent about 10 percent of its GDP on military programs. Another peak in military spending was during Ronald Reagan's presidency, 6.5 percent of GDP in 1985. When the Cold War ended, U.S. military expenditure dropped to 3 percent of GDP. It is now 4 percent and growing.
By 1998, the Pentagon budget had declined by 30 percent in real terms, and resumed growth when NATO and the U.S. started the war in Kosovo. The trend was boosted when President George W. Bush came to power.
Rogov said the main U.S. strategic objective after the Cold War had been to strengthen the country's status as the world's only superpower, the only pole in a unipolar world. This strategy rests on the power factor, which includes military might and non-military elements, primarily economic might.
The United States accounts for more than 20 percent of the world's GDP in terms of purchasing parity power, PPP, and for about 33 percent in terms of the exchange rate.
A closer look at the Pentagon budget shows that decisions to increase military spending were based on the assumption that the United States should exploit the situation created by the dissolution of the Soviet Union to surge ahead of the rest of the world in military terms, and to make rivalry with it impossible in the 21st century. The United States views China as its prime rival.
The right-wing hard-liners in the Bush administration, as well as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, argue that the United States could easily resume the heavy military spending of the Cold War period to maintain the country's position as the world's only superpower.
Two-thirds of the U.S. budget consists of so-called mandatory items, such as social security, healthcare and education, where spending is indexed to inflation. Congress does not vote on appropriations to these programs because money is appropriated automatically. Therefore, only one-third of the American budget is annually redistributed. This part is divided almost equally between military and non-military spending.
To keep raising defense spending, the administration will have to cut the protected items. But American society is not prepared for this. Attempts made toward this end provoked the protests of the opposition and the ruling Republican Party, who know that the loss of traditional services would cost them votes in the congressional elections in the fall of 2006 and the 2008 presidential election.
Rogov said U.S. military spending included the budget of the Department of Defense and the military part of expenditures of the Department of Energy. There is also the Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides patient care and federal benefits to veterans and their dependents, and pays about half of military pensions. In all, its expenses add about $50 billion to the defense budget.
In addition, the government has to repay debts which are mostly connected with deficit financing -- a planned excess of expenditure over income -- of military spending in the past.
The U.S. Congress has approved the appropriation of $512 billion for the DOD. The military part of the DOE's budget should add $15 billion-$20 billion, plus $50 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs and more than $40 billion in allocations for internal security and the part of the national debt that is associated not with social programs but with Vietnam and other wars.
Taken together, total U.S. military spending amounts to $650 billion or more, which is why the federal budget deficit amounts to 3-4 percent of GDP, to be paid for by future generations.
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(Viktor Litovkin is a defense commentator for the RIA Novosti news agency. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti.)
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
