Maybe I should just change the name of this blog to “Harvard Sucks”. After spending 9,000+ words last week whaling away, largely on Harvard Law Professor David Kennedy but also on Harvard Law Professor Samuel Moyn, I’m back on the attack, this time beating up on former Harvard President Larry Summers, now “only” Charles W. Eliot Professor at Harvard.
Larry recent gave a speech on why “big government” will always be with us, a statement with which I largely agree, except for his last “argument”, which went as follows (as summarized by Bloomberg’s Albert Hunt):
“Summers noted that the three major countries that could be seen as potential American adversaries—China, Russia and Iran—are all increasing military spending at rapid rates. It is unrealistic to think that won’t affect American policy, despite the wishes of many political liberals who hoped government could raise revenue from defense cuts. ‘To view the Pentagon as a cash cow is a grave and serious mistake,’ Summers said.”
Sorry, Larry, but you’ve got it backwards. The Pentagon is a HUGE cash cow, and your “justification” is, well, a big, fat lie—a whole bunch of them, in fact, and I intend to demolish them all. To begin with, none of these nations is a “potential adversary” unless we want them to be, unless we go looking for a fight.
China, unlike the former Soviet Union, is a true superpower, with an economy close to ours in size, but she is our “adversary” only if we insist on pretending that the Pacific Ocean doesn’t exist and that events 6,000 miles from our doorstep are of vital interest to us, and us alone.
Our major conflict with Russia, also 6,000 miles away, is over Ukraine, which was part of Russia for almost two hundred years. It would be “nice” if Eastern Europe were not within Russia’s orbit, but it’s scarcely relevant to American security. Again, it’s the 6,000 miles away thing that’s important to remember.
It’s Larry’s decision to include Iran as a potential adversary on his list that really gets my goat. Iran is not only 6,000 miles away from us, it has scarcely a fourth as many people as the U.S., and its economy is about one fortieth the size of ours. (Aren’t economists supposed to know these things?)
Furthermore, it’s important to note that all three potential “adversaries” have powerful nations as neighbors, and less than friendly ones at that. The U.S. only has to “worry” about Canada and Mexico, and unless you’re as dumb, and as racist, as Jeff Sessions, you don’t worry about either, and I’d like to believe that there aren’t any Harvard professors as dumb as Jeff Sessions.
So let’s talk about “increases” in military spending, but, first of all, let’s remember that increases or no, U.S. military spending, at about $610 billion in 20161, is almost triple that of our nearest “competitor”, China. In 2016, China pumped its military spending up from $145.8 billion in 2015 to $216 billion. Okay, that’s impressive, but consider the spending in 2016 of China’s not so friendly neighbors: India, $55.9 billion; Japan, $46 billion; South Korea, $37 billion; Australia, $24 billion, for a total of more than $150 billion.
But I’m not done yet. Not only does China have India at its doorstep, the one nation in the world that can match its population, it also shares a 2,600 mile border with Russia, and the record of enmity between the two is even longer. Russia’s defense budget for 2016 was $69 billion, meaning that China’s military spending was on a par with the overall spending of its neighbors.
Furthermore, Russian military spending was $65.6 billion in 2015, so the bump to $69 billion hardly seems as alarming as Summers wishes to suggest. And the dramatic drop in oil prices since 2013 has caused the value of the ruble, as measured against the dollar, to decline by more than 50%, making estimates of Russian spending problematic, not to mention disrupting Russian plans for military expansion. One would think an economist might be expected to know these things.
In any event, Russia’s military spending is dwarfed by that of its neighbors. “Pacifist” Germany kicked in with $41 billion. France spent $58 billion, while the UK contributed $48 billion, and even those lazy Italians spent $28 billion, for a total of $175 billion, well over twice the Russian total.2 Get the picture? But wait, there’s more. The European Union’s GDP was over $16 trillion in 2016. Russia’s was less than $1.3 trillion—less than one tenth as large!
I’ve reserved Iran for last, because Iran is the least. I find it particularly meretricious that Larry even included it on his list. What is he trying to do, make Dick Cheney look reasonable? In 2016, Iran spent $12.3 billion on defense, far less than the $30 billion figure publicized by President Obama, for whatever reason, when arguing on behalf of his laudable agreement with Iran to halt its nuclear program. Recently, there have been claims that Iran will increase military spending by 145% for 2017, supposedly on the basis of the “windfall” from the lapse of sanctions as a result of the nuclear agreement. This smells like propaganda from a variety of directions—“See! The agreement worked!” (Iranian “moderates”). “See! The agreement sucked!” (U.S. hardliners)—but, anyway, what happens once the “windfall” has been gathered? Particularly when $50 a barrel oil prices seem to be stretching as far as the eye can see?
But wait, there’s still more. (This is a long post.) What about military expenditures by Iran’s not so neighborly neighbors? Saudi Arabia spent a massive $68 billion, while the United Arab Emirates spent $23 billion and Israel spent $18 billion. Excuse me, but who’s the hegemonist here?
Larry might note, though he does not, that it is Israel, the Saudis, and, yes, Uncle Sam, who are the bully boys of the Middle East, not Iran. It is we who invade other nations, not Iran. The “insane”, supposedly suicidal fanatics who run the country have, since the Iranian revolution in 1979, invaded precisely no one. Lovable they are not, but “existential threat”? Frankly, Larry, you’re embarrassing yourself.
You’re embarrassing yourself, and you’re embarrassing the Democratic Party, and you’re embarrassing the cause of liberalism itself. As I’ve argued endless times, the Right wants—wants and needs—an enemy to replace the Soviet Union, because without an enemy they can’t win elections. We shouldn’t be doing their job for them. We shouldn’t be wasting hundreds of billions a dollars a year on “defense” that only makes the world both poorer and more dangerous.
