In A.D. 193, the Roman Praetorian Guard murdered the Emperor Pertinax, and
proceeded to auction off the imperial throne to the highest bidder. Until
this year, the most strenuous emulation of this feat by the U.S. military
came in 1980, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff took bids on the White House
from the ramparts of the Pentagon. Despite fierce bidding by Jimmy Carter,
the Chiefs had no hesitation in accepting Republican pledges and in
proclaiming that only Ronald Reagan would keep the Empire strong.
We are in the climactic moments of the 2000 auction. In mid-August, Frank
Gaffney Jr., a Defense Department official in the Reagan years, relayed the
Praetorians' reserve price on the imperial throne: "A nation with a
projected $1.9 trillion budget surplus can afford consistently to allocate a
minimum of 4 percent of its gross domestic product to ensure its security."
Already on July 21, Adm. Jay Johnson had said, as he stepped down from his
post as the Navy's top officer, that national security requires a defense
expenditure of 4 percent of GDP. On Aug. 16, Gen. James Jones, Commandant of
the Marine Corps, used the occasion of an interview with Defense Daily to
call for a "gradual ramp up" in defense spending "to about 4 or 4.5 percent
of the U.S. gross domestic product." Two days after Jones' comments, Gen.
Gordon Sullivan, former Army Chief of Staff and now president of the
100,000-strong Association of the U.S. Army, confirmed the Praetorians'
floor demand: "We must prepare for the future of the security of our nation.
... We should set the marker at 4 percent."
The Praetorians have avoided spelling out what 4 percent actually means in
dollar terms. The latest figures from the Office of Management and Budget
project GDP at $10.9 trillion in 2002, rising to $13.9 trillion in 2007. So,
a military budget set at 4 percent of GDP in 2002 would amount to $438
billion, and in 2007, $558 billion. This year's budgetary tribute to the
Praetorians is just on $300 billion. The combined spending of all putative
foes of the United States -- Russia, China and our old friends the rogue
states, including: Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Serbia, Cuba and
Sudan -- amounts to a little over $100 billion.
It is not well understood that though the number of ships, planes and
troops available to guard the nation has declined sharply, the actual flow
of dollars into the pockets of the Praetorians and their commercial partners
has remained at cold war levels. It is true that in the immediate aftermath
of the cold war, U.S. military spending under George Bush I diminished
slightly. Clinton reversed this trend with enough brio to allow Gore,
speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in the 1996 campaign, to declare
that the Democratic bid to the Praetorians that year was far superior to
that of the Republicans.
In his offer to the Praetorians this year, George W. Bush has bid Star
Wars, plus a pay raise for the armed forces. This is scarcely enough. The
Praetorians know well that the missile defense scheme endorsed by Bush is a
fantasy and that missile defense spending has been more or less constant
since the early sixties. The appeal of a pay raise from a Republican emperor
is undercut by lavish disbursements, such as the recent 10 percent raise
enacted by Emperor Clinton, who further solidified the loyalty of the senior
officer class by smoothing out wrinkles in the practice of double dipping.
"There are retired colonels in this building," a Pentagon number cruncher
remarked recently, "who are taking home $200,000 a year." "I'm proud," Gore
told the VFW five days after he kissed Tipper, "that we won the largest
military pay increase in twenty years."
The Praetorians are licking their lips at the prospect of a delightful
bidding war stretching over the presidential debates. We can look forward to
Joe Lieberman chastising Dick Cheney for his temerity, as President Bush's
Defense Secretary, in cutting the military budget and even canceling such
egregious boondoggles as the A-12 Stealth fighter.
There may be a deeper reason for the 4 percent solution. The military's
share of the economy has been going down. There are no convincing external
enemies, and it's been getting harder to claim a prime role for military R&D
in setting the agenda for technological innovation. Thanks to Hollywood and
our militarist heritage, the Pentagon still has a powerful cultural hold.
But as the Pentagon's weight in the overall economy diminishes, so, too,
does the clout of the Praetorians, and there may come a day when their bluff
is called.
For now, let us await the next bid, probably against a backdrop of October
surprises -- saving Montenegro from Slobo, or settling accounts one more
time with Saddam. Oh, and by the way, if the Praetorians get their 4 percent
out of a bidding war between Gore and Bush, Pentagon analyst Franklin
Spinney accurately remarks, "The 4 percent defense solution ... would be
tantamount to a declaration of total war on Social Security and Medicare in
the following decade. Such a war could be justified only if our nation's
survival were at stake."
To find out more about Alexander Cockburn and read features by other
columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com.
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