These sums are worryingly high in their own right but they take on special significance when we recall that most great empires fall as a result of economic not military collapse. The economic historian Niall Ferguson has noted:
“This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources available for the Army Navy and Air Force… The precedents are certainly there. Habsburg Spain defaulted on all or part of its debt 14 times between 1557 and 1696 and also succumbed to inflation due to a surfeit of New World silver. Prerevolutionary France was spending 62 percent of royal revenue on debt service by 1788. The Ottoman Empire went the same way: interest payments and amortization rose from 15 percent of the budget in 1860 to 50 percent in 1875. And don’t forget the last great English-speaking empire. By the interwar years interest payments were consuming 44 percent of the British budget making it intensely difficult to rearm in the face of a new German threat. Call it the fatal arithmetic of imperial decline. Without radical fiscal reform it could apply to America next.” (Newsweek Nov. 28 2009).
It is with this as backdrop that I welcomed the draft report of the White House Fiscal Commission co-chaired by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. The controversial plan which has something for everyone to hate identifies $4 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade. Liberals have already rejected the proposed reductions in entitlement programs including a one-year postponement in the eligibility age for collecting social security. Conservatives are lining up against the proposed tax increases and cuts in military spending.
Here’s the point that everyone is missing: sacrifice. There is no painless plan to restore America to fiscal responsibility and thus greatness. Rather than repeat the selfish calculus of “what’s in it for me” we all need to focus on the prize – the collective common good.
Let’s take the example of military spending. I believe that a strong military is and should be an important component of US national policy but it is only a component. With all the focus on advanced weapon programs and counter terrorism we sometimes forget the goal: A secure United States of America that can protect its vital interests around the world. Simpson-Bowles would trim the Pentagon budget in the name of deficit reduction. Secretary Gates has also targeted $100 billion in savings; however he would reinvest the savings in other military programs including combating cyber-terrorism which I strongly support.
If we recall the principle discussed above that great empires fall when their economies not their militaries fail then I could argue that the single most important thing the Department of Defense can do to advance its mission (“to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country”) would be to contribute significantly to the reduction of the US national deficit.
Could debt and deficit reduction be the stealth weapon and strategic missile shield of the 21st Century?
if cutting military spending in order to reduce deficits and debt service then the UK was following the right course in the 1930’s no? Or maybe I misread you. No doubt most empires collapse economically before they collapse militarily or politically and I think you have correctly identified the problem as the unwillingness to sacrifice for the common good. But that leads to the question of what do we have in common here is the USA? The answer I think is much less than we used to have in common as our culture increasing emphasizes “diversity” as virtue. the fact is it is not our differences that lead us to sacrifice for one another but rather our commonality. In the context of sacrifice cultural diversity is not a strength but a weakness. American Exceptionalism a concept that infuriates some and which has never been well defined seems to me to refer to the fact that perhaps alone among nations we define ourselves not by tribal descent or race or creed but by a shared set of beliefs which perforce dictate our destiny. Lacking bonds of blood and lineage it is only a shared culture and values that can put the own in “Non Sibi Sed Patriae Non Sibi Sed Suis.” Or the one in “E Pluribus Unum.”
Very true and very hard to achieve at the same time…Sacrifice is the word easy to write or pronounce but will be very hard to put into real action…No pain No gain…
Great! Thanks!
Here
Thought this might be relevant: US debt gets politicians thinking. http://www.qfinance.com/blogs/anthony-harrington/2011/04/12/us-deficit-finally-gets-the-politicians-thinking-budget