Spending more on defense does not mean more defense -- quite the opposite

In providing for the common defense, a common theme and article of faith among many commentators and most members of Congress persists: America's military power must be rebuilt and restored; the solution is spending more money.

However, that is not the correct answer. But even challenging this hallowed premise about the virtue of spending more money risks provoking incredulity and scorn.

Consider this contrarian view. Without a fundamental revision of U.S. defense strategy, spending more money will shrink, not grow American military power. This unpleasant reality is ignored at our peril because, if or when Congress finally approves this year's defense budget, it will be close to $900 billion. Surely nearly $900 billion is sufficient to sustain and increase U.S. military power. Yet, it is not. Why?

The reasons rest in uncontrolled real annual cost growth, calculated by the Congressional Budget Office, as 5%-7% for every defense item from precision weapons to people to pencils. Inflation of 3%-5% exacerbates this shortfall. The consequence is that another $75 billion-$100 billion is needed this year just to sustain current force, operational, modernization and readiness levels. Absent extra spending, the force will and must contract.

One historical example vividly underscores this cost growth paradox. In 1940, the lead Navy fighter was the F4F Wildcat. Each cost $30,000 then. The most expensive Cadillac sold for about $3,000 meaning that for each F4F, 10 cars could be bought.

Today, the Navy's lead fighter is the F-35. It costs about $100 million. The most expensive Cadillac sells for just under $100,000. One F-35 could purchase about 1,000 Cadillacs.

Today, the first Columbia class nuclear ballistic submarine will cost $20 billion. The B-21 Raider bomber and the Sentinel ICBM programs have cost and time overruns measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars and several years delay. A 20mm cannon round costs $1,000. And in the Red Sea, the United States is firing $5 million SM-6 anti-air and $2 million Tomahawk cruise missiles against cheap Houthi drones and cruise missiles. Are these costs sustainable?

Furthermore, three of the services have failed to reach recruiting goals again this year. Only the Marine Corps made its numbers by retention. The downside is that an older force is a more expensive force. And those costs will accrue.

Since the Obama administration's "four plus one strategy" released in 2014, subsequent administrations have been consistent in following it. Aims were to compete, contain, deter and, if war arose, defeat five specific enemies, headed by China and Russia. Today, the aims are compete, deter and prevail. And no one believes a nuclear war can be fought and won. Where, however, are these criteria defined? What does each mean, whether directed against China's Communist Party or Russian President Vladimir Putin?

China has not relented on its military expansion or threatening its neighbors. Russia was not contained or deterred in seizing Crimea and then invading Ukraine. Iran is supporting and supplying its Hamas and Hezbollah surrogates and providing advanced weapons to Russia. North Korea's Kim Jong Un has embarked on increasingly belligerent actions toward his neighbors to the south.

Each of these strategies retains the same weaknesses. Their aims are not achievable or affordable. None can be fully manned. Yet, has this alarm been sounded, other than by decrying a weakened military and pleading for more defense spending in the face of growing and well-documented threats posed by adversaries? The answer is no.

At the beginning of World War II, Winston Churchill was on target when he realized that because Britain was out of money, it must think its way clear of danger. Today, the United States must follow that wise counsel. That begins with defining a strategy that fully and objectively assimilates these realities and states clear objectives that can be achieved, are affordable and can be manned without the need for a draft.

Unfortunately, since the end of the Cold War, no administration has had the courage or confidence to challenge the defense status quo seriously and comprehensively. Requirements overwhelmed resources, producing a strategy-force level-budget mismatch. Too many constituencies in government and the private sector opposed or feared change. And White Houses usually had higher political priorities that could be jeopardized in the massive disruption that would accompany any such attempts at a rigorous defense review.

Hence, a decades-old strategy remains the foundation for today's, confirming an implacable truth. On the current course, and even with modest defense increases, U.S. military power will not be sustained. Is anyone listening?

Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior adviser at Washington's Atlantic Council, the prime author of "shock and awe" and author of "The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large." Follow him @harlankullman. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.