What Does the Pentagon Need? More Money, Obviously.

I enjoyed Arthur Herman’s romp through the Scottish Enlightenment and his book on the Royal Navy, though derivative, was a breezy read. But this piece for Commentary is truly bizarre: according to Herman, you see, Barack Obama and Bob Gates are preparing to throw away American military supremacy.

Yes, really. Despite the reality of a $685bn budget this year, Herman’s piece is headlined “The Re-Hollowing of the Military”. Herman acknowledges that a 3% increase in the Pentagon’s budget this year makes sustaining this argument a pretty tricky proposition. Thankfully he’s up to it, complaining for instance that “While military personnel costs for FY 2010 are up 5 percent in the new budget, weapons procurement—the lifeblood of any plan to modernize the military—is down nearly 2 percent.” This conveniently ignores the fact that procurement expenditure is due to rise from $100bn (in 2009) to $112bn in 2011 (according to the proposals submitted by OMB anyway).