OPINION — The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic should accelerate serious rethinking about what future federal government spending is needed in the name of “national security.”
As Max Boot aptly put it last Thursday in The Washington Post, non-traditional, national security emergencies so far in the 21st Century “call into question whether we are spending our $738 billion defense budget on the right priorities.”
There are two ways to look at that statement.
One is, are we spending funds on the right weapons given this country’s future military threats? Another, and more provocative question is, are we spending national security dollars to defend against non-military future threats that are a greater danger to our national security?
Before I read Boots’ article, I had planned to write this column about two recent studies that described changes underway in the U.S. Navy’s force structure and its past overspending on ship building.
Last Wednesday, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report on Navy force structure and shipbuilding plans which said an expected new Force Structure Assessment could see a “shift [in] the fleet to a more distributed architecture that includes a reduced proportion of larger ships, an increased proportion of smaller ships, and a newly created category of large unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and large unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).”
An earlier, March 24, Government Accountability Agency (GAO) report, based on a two year study of Navy ship repairs, found that more than $4.2 billion of increased Navy expenses has occurred because of failure to take into consideration life cycle, operating and sustainment costs during the design and building phases of those ships.
Such studies fit into the first category of government and non-government experts reviewing traditional defense spending while taking into consideration changing military enemies and threats.
But I think the current pandemic, which is headed toward causing more deaths and spending than recent wars, should make us realize that such non-military, national security threats cannot be deterred by just strengthening the military. As Boot puts it in his column, “There are more pressing problems than a military attack from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea.”
He suggests, “Instead of simply pouring more money into the Pentagon, we need to develop new capacities to combat foreign disinformation, transition away from carbon fuels and stop the spread of pandemics.”
Yes, Boot believes “foreign disinformation” is a major, national security threat which exists today, is growing, and against which we should be devoting more national security dollars and probably more effort through the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence community.
But he’s also correct in recognizing preparations, in the name of national security, are needed for not only future pandemics, but also to meet the impacts of climate change.
Trump early on refused to recognize the potential consequences of coronavirus, and he is in almost total denial when it comes to using government to meet the challenge of rising global temperatures along with climate and weather changes. Just this week, the Trump administration took a backward step by reducing the Obama fuel efficiency standards (54.5 mpg by 2025, to 40 mpg) – a change that will cause an additional one billion tons of greenhouse gases over the next five years.
There is another aspect of the post COVID-19 world that is antithetical to Trump’s nationalistic insistence on America First. The pandemic has proven nations of the world are tightly connected and meeting these newest, non-military, worldwide, national security threats will require international consultations and solutions drawn up and followed by many, if not all, nations.
In last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Henry Kissinger wrote, “No country, not even the U.S., can in a purely national effort overcome the virus. Addressing the necessities of the moment must ultimately be coupled with a global collaborative vision and program.”
Trump’s one-on-one phone calls with his “great friend,” China’s President Xi Jinping and other leaders will not do it.
The President has not even taken a step on behalf of national unity – that would have been to consult with his presidential predecessors, something he’s actually ruled out.
During the March 22, coronavirus White House press briefing, he was asked about “reaching out” to former Presidents Bush, Obama, Clinton, and Carter. Trump’s first response was, “I respect everybody, but I feel I have an incredible team and I think we’re doing an incredible job. When you look at the job we’re doing — and all you have to do is look at the approval numbers on the job we’re doing. I think we’re doing an incredible job.”
That day, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), there were 33,404 reported coronavirus cases; this past Sunday, the CDC reported that the number was up to 304,826 cases. Is that the president’s definition of an “incredible job”?
Back on March 22, Trump went on to say, “I don’t want to disturb them [the ex-presidents], bother them. I don’t think I’m going to learn much (emphasis added). And, you know, I guess you could say that there’s probably a natural inclination not to call.” He added, “Now, if I felt that if I called, I’d learn something and that would save one life — it would save one life, okay? — I would make the call in two minutes. But I don’t see that happening.”
That was before the March 29-30 briefings when Trump learned that 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die from the current COVID-19 crisis.
Perhaps he should think about it again.
An effective, national leader by this point, facing today’s health and financial crises, would have by now put together what The New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Jennifer Senior described yesterday as “a first-rate company of disaster preparedness experts,” and “assembled a team of Nobel-prize winning economists or previous Treasury Secretaries.”
Trump has finally listened to Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, but it’s also clear that non-experts, such as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, along with personal business friends have his ear.
Beyond expectation of settling current problems, some preparations for the post-pandemic period should be underway to include a new look at the future which builds on recognizing what we will have gone through was, in Kissinger’s words, “unlike anything ever known in history.”
It could happen again.
Therefore, I agree with Boot who wrote, “What we really need is a more radical rethink of the whole concept of ‘national security.’”
My “more radical rethink” is that the U.S. has to return to its major role on the world stage, not because it is the most powerful militarily, or richest economically, but because it could and should be the most innovative in dealing with the biggest national security threats to our planet — pandemics and global warming. They threaten not just the United States, but all nations.
A small start could be made in the coming months by think tanks like the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, the Wilson Center and others. They regularly use election years to study and then propose programs for whoever wins the November presidential election.
One or more should focus on reshaping thinking on just what are the real, major threats to this country and, in the name of national security, how do we prepare to meet them.
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