Just How Big Does the World's Biggest War Machine Need to Be?
It's official -- the 2004 presidential campaign has begun. It started last week about 30 miles off the coast of Southern California, and Democrats are already taking on water.
Yes, we all know it was a reelection-minded publicity stunt when President George W. Bush landed aboard the Abraham Lincoln in a military jet. And by the way, it was his most dangerous mission since flyovers of El Paso, back when GI George skipped the war in Vietnam and instead joined the Texas Air National Guard.
But it's nothing to get upside-down about, as Democrats are doing, flailing at the president with all the impact of a swarm of gnats.
"I do question the motives of a desk-bound president who assumes the garb of a warrior," scolded Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). Los Angeles congressman Henry Waxman carped that he wants a "full accounting" of the cost to taxpayers.
I want a full accounting, too. But not of the aircraft carrier stunt.
In the aftermath of Iraq, I've been considering the cost of the most powerful military machine in the history of the universe. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't have the biggest and best war machine, especially since Sept. 11. I just think maybe we've gotten carried away.
Chris Hellman of the Center for Defense Information in Washington has compiled a ranking of the biggest militaries in the world. And it's a long, long way from No. 1 to No. 2, which is Russia.
Using President Bush's budget increase requests for fiscal 2004, Hellman puts the U.S. military price tag at $399.1 billion, which includes $19.3 billion for the nuclear operation in the Department of Energy.
That's not as high as it was in peak years half a century ago, but it's more than six times as much as Russia, at $65 billion. And that's not even the most remarkable aspect of this list. The U.S. military budget would be the size of the next 21 largest militaries in the world combined.
Iraq, world menace, didn't even crack the top 21. It ranked 39th at $1.4 billion.
No wonder the Iraqi army ran for the hills. The mismatch was the equivalent of the LAPD storming the desert in a war on the Indio Police Department. And you know the Rampart guys at least would have planted a couple of nukes.
"Every single system we operate is better than that of our rivals," Hellman says of our transcendent military. That's partly because many countries have given up on the winless proposition of trying to compete.
