Budget sequester or no, Pentagon still will spend like a drunken sailor to fight 20th century wars

Not exactly headed for Skid Row. Much has been made, including by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, of the devastating effect that budget sequestration would have on America's ability to defend itself. But, while the suddenness of sequestration of Pentagon spending would cause troubling dislocations in the short run, the idea that cuts in overall spending over the next decade would leave the United States a helpless giant are ridiculous. That doesn't mean the sequester is a good idea, for defense or non-defense spending. But the defense budget cuts contained in it need to be put into perspective.

Based on surveys of the Stockholm International Peace Institute of the 128 nations for which there are data, the U.S. now accounts for 41 percent of all military expenditures on the planet. In fact, it spends more than the next 16 nations combined. Short of some large nation deciding to vastly increase its own spending, that gigantic margin is likely to remain fairly stable. When figuring the impact of these budgets, it's worth remembering that certain items that are actually elements of defense spending'for example, the cost of health care for veterans and the interest on money borrowed to pay for past wars'are left out of the tally.

It also shouldn't be forgotten that in the decade beginning in 2001, Pentagon spending nearly doubled. In inflation-adjusted dollars, it rose higher than it's been in the post-World War II world. It's dropped recently, mostly as a consequence of the end of the war in Iraq and the winding down in Afghanistan. But even if sequestration were too occur, defense spending would fall back only as far as it was in 2007, again adjusted for inflation.

How unsafe did that 2007 level of spending make the United States?

What's more, even with sequestration, between now and 2022, the Pentagon budget would rise an inflation-adjusted 2.4 percent annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Which means the core defense budget, without money for war spending, would be higher in a decade than it is now although considerably lower than it would be if the growth in its budget weren't slated to be slowed.

One key reason for this beyond militaristic ideology is that the Pentagon can't prioritize. The players, that is, the contractors helped along with retired generals and colonels on their boards, Congresspeople eager for jobs in their districts and the leadership of the uniformed services themselves'the Eisenhower-dubbed military-industrial complex'are determined to keep buying unneeded stuff, often overpriced stuff that is technologically, tactically and strategically obsolete.

The "stakeholders" don't always agree with each other on individual items, but the web of interconnections and backslapping and arm-twisting conspires to keep the machine going even when the results are nonsense. Please continue reading about Pentagon budget cuts below the fold.