Why There Will Not be Another British Invasion (And That Is Good News!)

For those of you that, like me, came of age in the 1960s, you remember the so-called British invasion of that time. Great musical groups came to the U.S. from Britain and brought some great British rock and roll sounds with them including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Freddie and The Dreamers and who knows how many more. These "invasion" years were great times and great music.

But today, and in a different context, I think we can confidently say that there will not be another British invasion anytime soon and that is good news. Why? Consider the details from an Associated Press article from October 19, 2010 entitled, "UK's Cameron Announces Military Austerity Plan:"

• British Prime Minister David Cameron announced a sweeping military austerity plan for the British government to help reduce the national debt of the country.
• The country will reduce its armed forces by thousands of troops and a whopping 25,000 civilian staff.
• It will delay a program to upgrade its traditional nuclear defenses.
• While two new aircraft carriers will be built, one will be mothballed immediately and the other will not have enough aircraft for it to be serviceable until 2019, only because construction contracts and budgets have already been committed. In the universal and  perverted government budget process, it is less expensive to build the carriers and not use them than it is to stop building them. At least they thought through the process.
• Numerous military bases will be closed.
• The country's nuclear weapon stockpile will be reduced 25% from 160 warheads to 120 warheads.
• The changes would reduce the overall defense budget by 8% over current levels within four years.
• The new defense budget will still be more expensive than the recommended NATO guidelines.
• Planned expenditures to replace Britain's four nuclear-armed submarines will be delayed until 2016 and the number of warheads on each of the new submarines will be reduced, saving almost $1.2 billion.
• Cameron stated that Britain's military will refocus its defense efforts on its special forces and develop expertise to repel cyper threats.

Wow! A politician that has the courage to challenge his country's military-industrial complex, understands that the out sized and in many cases, unnecessary, military expenditures were helping to inflate an unacceptable national budget deficit, and realizes that the military Britain has in place today is ill-equipped to counter the new security threats in the world today. Kudos to Mr. Cameron for doing the right thing for his country vs. doing the right thing for his campaign donors and political future.

What could the U.S. learn from this positive and strategic effort in Britain?

• We should be able to downsize our out sized international military deployment by bringing home our 50,000 or so troops in Germany, our 10,000 or so troops in Britain, our 27,000 or so troops in South Korea, and our 50,000 or so troops from Japan. The Iron Curtain is down so we need much fewer troops stationed in Europe, South Korea has one of the strongest economies in the world so let them defend themselves against the North Koreans, and Japan is now an ally so there is no need to occupy their land. Realize that these deployments are from another age and era and are no longer necessary.
• Bring home the remaining 50,000 troops in Iraq as Obama the candidate promised to do but Obama the President has failed to do, with him just continuing the plan of deployment that Bush had in place.
• Stop recruiting new people for the armed forces and use attrition to reduce the hundreds of thousands of troops returning from around the world, substantially reducing military deployment costs and personnel costs.
• Refocus some of these freed up troops to counter the Islamic terrorism threat now facing the country in so many different ways including nuclear terrorism, biological terrorism, chemical terrorism, home grown terrorism, and cyber terrorism. As you can see, our biggest national security threat today and for the immediate future is terrorism, not the Iron Curtain, not North Korea's traditional military capacity, and not the potential of Pearl Harbor II.
• Close unnecessary military bases, doing it through another Base Closing Commission if the current members of the political class do not have the courage to do it themselves, further reducing the military budget.
• Delay or cancel new weapons systems, naval ship building, and other military build programs that do not address the terrorism threats listed above regardless of the impact on a local economy.
• Improve, enlarge, and redeploy special forces troops to counter foreign based terrorism threats, avoiding massive foreign military intrusions like Iraq and Afghanistan wherever possible.

Taking these steps would reduce our deficit spending, reduce our meddling in other countrys' affairs, and focus our armed forces on real threats, not past threats. It would help clean up our election processes since there would be less money available to give out as earmarks in exchange for re-election campaign contributions.

If we achieved Britain's target of 8% reduction in military spending, we would be able to trim about $60 to $70 billion out of our huge military budget. I believe that 8% is a conservative estimate since we have so much more wasted resources deployed under our Defense Department budget. In fact, if our defense spending was in line with the NATO benchmark of 2% of a country's gross domestic product, our defense budget would be about $280 billion or about $420 billion less than it currently is. Thus, an 8% reduction seems to be very doable and a little on the low side.

Why would we not do this? Because it does not appear that we have the forward thinking, problem solving politicians that Britain has. Obama has been in office for almost two years and nothing has changed relative to what the Bush administration would have done it if was still in control. The defense budget is still way too big, our troop deployment around the world is still too extensive, we are building and planning weapons systems that nobody thinks will be useful in the terrorism world we live in today, and most of our troops are trained and deployed to fight the types of wars we are highly unlikely to face any time soon. As a result, we spend a lot of money for less protection than we probably had years ago. Not a good deal but a deal I do not see changing anytime soon, based on the current administration's actions and plans and the lack of backbone of our current political class.

Thus, it is good we will not be seeing another British invasion soon since they are focused on evolving their national defense resources so that they more effectively and more efficiently protect their nation from today's threats, and are far less likely to invade any nation under this progressive strategy. Maybe we can take a hint from Mr. Cameron and his associates and ensure that the United States does not do any invasions either while simultaneously increasing the protection per defense dollar spent.


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