A Budget for A New American Arsenal: An Alternative to the "4 Percent Folly"
May 12, 2008
By Bernard I. Finel, PhD
America’s Defense Needs
The Pentagon has unveiled a base $515.4 billion defense budget for fiscal year 2009. As mind-boggling as this number may seem to many, this amount of spending will consume less of the American economy-roughly 3.4 percent–than during the Vietnam and Korean War eras, when military spending represented over nine percent of the national economy.
This level of spending is unsustainable. Some, such as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, and several prominent analysts from the Heritage Foundation, argue that a floor for defense spending should be set at 4 percent.
In A Budget for a New American Arsenal, Bernard Finel calls for a more comprehensive, nuanced approach to budget expansion. Arguing that “the concept of a defense budget is as obsolete in today’s world as is the concept of separate Army, Navy and Air Force budgets in a world of joint military operations,” he suggests a national defense budget that reflects that takes into account the need to leverage a variety of instruments of state power to confront the challenges of today’s security environment.
Ultimately recommending that current national security spending should be around 5 percent of GDP, Finel argues for the need to expand the foreign service, increase intelligence spending, address global health concerns more aggressively, and reconstitute a U.S. Information Agency. Fiscal responsibility, he argues, can be enforced by replacing lost and damaged military equipment, while being more selective in modernization efforts and accepting the erosion of certain capabilities that have waned in importance.
Dr. Bernard I. Finel is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Project. Previously, he was Associate Professor of Military Strategy and Operations at the U.S. National War College.
Download PDF:
A Budget for a New American Arsenal.pdf
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Defense News: Kerry, Zinni Urge New ‘Strategic’ Foreign Policy Style
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Federal Times: Commentary: Linking defense spending to GDP could backfire
The Washington Times: Resources for national security
