For 2023, the U.S. Defence Department’s budget is an astronomical US$816-billion. The total exceeds the military budgets of the next ten countries combined. The American spending triples that of China. It’s about ten times that of Russia.
The arms race is no race at all. The U.S. laps the field many times over. But the gargantuan gap is still not enough. Congress is planning yet more major increases for the insatiable Pentagon. Does that make sense?
Recently we’ve heard the usual bellyaching from south of the border about Canada’s military spending, about the country not carrying its weight. The focal point of the criticism is that, like the majority of the 31 NATO members, it is not meeting its commitment of two per cent of GDP in defence spending. It is only at 1.3 per cent.
A commitment made is one that should be kept. There should be no disputing this, nor the fact that the Canadian military could definitely use the upgrades.
But while Americans condemn our defence failings, they might want to examine their own, which they don’t. They turn a blind eye or give a pass to the massive amounts of waste in Pentagon spending, to the obscene profits of taxpayer-fleecing defence contractors, to the ineffectiveness of vast spending advantages in conflicts like Afghanistan.
Critics steer clear for fear of being labelled soft on defence. The Pentagon is a sacred cow. No institution gets less scrutiny from the media. Congress goes easy, other than the usual suspects like Senator Bernie Sanders, who recently wrote a scathing critique of what he called the “massive waste, fraud and abuse in the sprawling military-industrial complex.”
But he was largely ignored. There is no rethinking going on, no pressure to limit the spending surge that will soon likely reach a trillion U.S. dollars a year. If Washington had curbed its defence budgets over the years so as to only double those of its adversaries, one wonders how many trillions could have been saved for pressing social causes.
Washington is spending a fortune on maintaining no fewer than 750 military bases in 80 countries around the globe. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that many of the post-Second World War relics are no longer necessary. But nothing is done.
Other billions are squandered by the Pentagon on being horrendously overcharged by suppliers, on weapons of mass uselessness, on bureaucratic waste.
Military parts supplier TransDigm has been repeatedly found to overcharge the government by enormous amounts. For 2022 alone, as Mr. Sanders points out, navy auditors found US$4.4-billion in untracked inventory. On the staggering levels of overhead, Bob Woodward and Craig Whitlock did a report a few years ago headlined “Pentagon buries evidence of $125-billion bureaucratic waste.”
Such are the U.S. outlays that if Canada were to suddenly raise its spending to two per cent of GDP, it would only add a pittance, a tiny fraction, to the North American defence spending total.
The war in Ukraine necessitates big American outlays but the end of the Afghanistan war needs be factored in. It has saved billions.
Grousers about Canada, such as The Wall Street Journal and Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, might wish to confer with their country’s ambassador to Canada, David Cohen. He says it’s “a bad mistake” to assess Canada’s commitment to defence by the one spending metric. On matters like support for the war in Ukraine and Arctic defence, he says Canada has stepped up.
Canadian military sources I’ve talked to such as former Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie, who also served as a Liberal MP, dispute this, saying the ambassador is painting too rosy a picture.
They may be right, but the lack of battlefield rewards America has realized from all its spending tends to support Mr. Cohen’s one-metric argument. As for carrying its own weight, it was Canadian forces who did the heavy lifting in the most dangerous Afghan war theatre of Kandahar. In assessing performance in war and peace, a big metric is exercising good judgment, not, for example, succumbing to inflated threats. Canada showed such judgment with respect to the invasion of Iraq and the Vietnam War.
The Canadian people would like a stronger military, but as our leaders like Stephen Harper, who cut the defence budget, have discovered, it is far down their priority list.
One reason for this is that Canada has its great protector next door doing all the military spending imaginable. They know the taps will never turn off, and that the American appetite for colossal military expenditures is endless.