LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
What
are we buying with our current, very expensive security strategy?
As
I listened to our presenters at the ASSA meetings in New Orleans, and discussed
with EPS members the current state of the war and the economy, this question
emerged as the frame within which it makes the most sense to view current
polices. As we approach the fifth anniversary of the invasion of
Winslow
Wheeler, James Galbraith and Barbara Bergmann all spoke to this in their
presentations in New Orleans. Carl Conetta addresses it from another point of
view in his article in this issue. Carl goes further than stating that these
circumstances may soon force an economic reckoning for which the nation is
ill-prepared. He references Chaim
Kaufman’s assertion that the Iraq War itself is in fact a market failure:
“[T]he strong civic institutions
and robust marketplaces of ideas in mature democracies are thought to
substantially protect them from severe threat inflation... that could promote
excessively risky foreign policy adventures and wars. The marketplace of ideas
helps to weed out unfounded, mendacious, or self-serving foreign policy
arguments because their proponents cannot avoid wide-ranging debate in which
their reasoning and evidence are subject to public scrutiny. The marketplace of
ideas, however, failed to fulfill this function in the 2002-03
Lucy
Law Webster’s article in this issue demonstrates that analysts have been
scrambling to keep up with the ballooning costs of the war in Iraq since before
it even began. Even Joseph Stiglitz and
Linda Bilmes seem unable to keep up with inflation; as their book “The Three
Trillion Dollar War” is released this month, in interviews they are already
mentioning costs approaching five trillion.
Meanwhile,
in a tacit acknowledgement that this current strategy is not really buying
better security, some are suggesting an even higher defense budget. Baker
Spring, of the Heritage Foundation, notes:
“Current defense expenditures,
or even spending equivalent to 4 percent of GDP, will not jeopardize either the
health of the economy or the prosperity of the American people. A sustained
commitment to defense is necessary to sustain liberty.”
It
may be true that our economy can absorb greater defense budgets without a major
impact on a macro level. Defense
spending as a percentage of GDP is near all-time lows. And I agree that a
sustained commitment to defense is necessary to sustain liberty. However, I
think that this is one problem that throwing more money at it is not going to
solve. We have to be smarter, not more
profligate.
In
this issue, Polia Petkova presents a comparative analysis of the wars in Kosovo
and Iraq, looking particularly at the effects on trade and foreign direct
investment that political instability engenders. We wondered if there were any lessons to be
learned from the post-war period in Kosovo that might be applicable in
Both
the American public and the
As
our organization celebrates its twentieth anniversary, this is really good
news. The people of the United States have begun to see that the costs
are not worth the return, and that the war is affecting their lives here at
home.
Maybe
next time we can help them think about these things BEFORE we go to war.
(1) Chaim
Kaufmann - Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The
Selling of the
(2) 25 February
2008, The
FY 2009 Defense Budget Request: The Growing Gap in Defense Spending,
By Baker Spring
Backgrounder #2110, The Heritage Foundation
(3) http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iu6xjCz8Ykakz5T6AjT3olMgRXTwD8UMCQAO1