International Law

U.S. Double Standard on China Military Spending

By Stan

This post could apply to any country’s military spending, I suppose, not just China. However, since China is the favorite “foreign menace” for American right-wing nutjobs these days, let’s limit the discussion to just the one scary rising military behemoth.

I will take liberally from a great Op/Ed by Eric Stoner that was distributed to a variety of U.S. newspapers this week.

To set the stage, the latest saga in the Red Scare was China’s military spending report:

China?s official military budget jumped to $60 billion, an 18 percent increase over last year, but U.S. officials warned that the actual figure is somewhere between $105 billion and $150 billion annually.

We go through this on a regular basis. The PLA says that they spend X dollars, and then academics and government officials spend a lot of time and resources trying to figure out how much was really spent (call it X + 1). Lots of Congressional committee hearings, panel discussions at think tanks, and Op/Ed missives ensue. It’s a tradition among military analysts and China scholars.

No problem with this, I suppose, if one believes that keeping track of other countries’ military spending is a reasonable thing to do. I can go along with that.

But wait, the perennial argument over whose analysis of X + 1 is correct (i.e. how much money is China really spending on its miliary) involves another obligatory political argument: bitching and moaning about the lack of transparency regarding the PLA budget.

Again, I’m all in favor of transparency. But shouldn’t the following make these guys just a little hesitant in blasting the PLA for its spending and lack of transparency?

In February, the Obama administration requested a mind-boggling $664 billion for the U.S. military over the next fiscal year ? more than 10 times China?s official budget. In fact, the United States spends roughly the same amount on ?defense? each year as every other country in the world combined, according to the authoritative data of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

And much like China, Washington?s accounting for such things is notoriously lacking in transparency. Many expenses that the average person would consider defense-related ? such as funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy?s maintenance of the nuclear stockpile, military aid to allies, and the share of interest payments on the national debt that can be attributed to past military spending ? are hidden in other parts of the federal budget. When all of these costly extras are added up, the United States? unofficial military budget tops out at more than $1 trillion.

To make it simple, Robert Higgs, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, wrote, “A well-founded rule of thumb is to take the Pentagon’s (always well publicized) basic budget total and double it.”

Two issues here. First, the U.S. spends way too much money on defense. We already know this. Unfortunately, this will not change anytime soon. The Republicans get paid off by the defense contractors and are wedded to nationalistic/xenophobic rhetoric, so more military spending is a given for them.

The Democrats are scared shitless that if they cut defense by even a tiny bit (actually, even slow the rate of growth of military spending), the Republicans will accuse them of being weak in the face of “America’s enemies,” leading to an erosion of the apparently fragile Democratic governing majorities in the legislature. Oh yeah, and the Democrats get paid off by the defense contractors too.

Second, seems like the U.S. military has some transparency problems of its own. In addition to the items mentioned in the quote above, let’s not forget that until recently, a lot of the U.S. spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were “off budget.” In other words, the money was not taken out of the defense budget but were specially appropriated (at the request of then-President Bush) as special supplemental spending measures. This was done, of course, to better hide the cost of the wars and maintain support for these military adventures with the American public.

OK, so the U.S. government and certain China Bashers are big fat hypocrites when it comes to military spending levels and transparency. Is that it?

Of course not, there’s always more fun to be had. In addition to the amount of money being spent, there’s the question of what the money is being used for. The U.S. military, commenting on the PLA spending news, contained this dire warning:

Without a hint of irony, the report expresses concern about, ?the purposes to which China’s current and future military power will be applied,? and suggests that Beijing could even use its armed forces ?to ensure access to resources or enforce claims to disputed territories.?

Perish the thought. “Ensure access to resources”???

You know, it’s a good thing that the U.S. military has never been used to ensure access to resources. If it was, the U.S. would look pretty stupid criticizing China for enhancing those sorts of capabilities.

Oh, wait a minute, I forgot. Never mind. I guess looking stupid is acceptable to those gents at the Pentagon as long as they keep getting their money every year.

And what’s the best way to ensure that your budget doesn’t get cut? Scare the bejesus out of Congress by telling them that the yellow horde is building submarines, aircraft carriers, and sharks with frickin’ lasers on their heads.

This is all inevitable. If you accept the premise of American exceptionalism in all its boneheaded glory (or Chinese exceptionalism, for that matter), then it’s quite easy to make a tiny leap of logic such that the rules that apply to other nations do not apply to you.

A particularly egregious example is the weapons trade. U.S. politicians rail against international arms traffickers but never seem overly troubled that the U.S. is the number one arms dealer in the world. Hey, you gotta sell the surplus somewhere, and contrary to what some may think, there is a limit on how many guns and other kinds of weapons folks in Virginia are able to buy, stuff into the trunk of their car, and drive into the District of Columbia.

Many other examples abound. Why is it that some countries may not have nuclear weapons, but the U.S., which actually used a nuke against another nation, may keep its arsenal? Why is the U.S. allowed to torture foreign national prisoners, but if others do it, the acts are considered war crimes?

I know the usual answers to these questions, which generally come down to global stability. Problem is, although that works best for the country that is currently on top, no one else seems to care all that much for the double standard on military policy.

I’ll give Eric stoner the last words on hypocrisy and the military-industrial complex:

The truth is that the vast sums allocated by both the United States and China for future wars is a tragic waste of finite resources, especially given the spiraling financial and ecological crises that we face.

Until the United States acknowledges the monster in the mirror and begins to dramatically cut its bloated military budget, President Barack Obama?s soaring rhetoric about the need for a different, more respectful relationship with the rest of the world will unfortunately remain hollow words.

And if China is ever to slow or reduce its military spending, the United States as the sole military power in the world, must lead by example.

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on May 08, 2009 (boomark / email).