America’s Self-Weakening Security Syndrome

[WhiskeyGirl]

Heritage Foundation: America’s Self-Weakening Security Syndrome

Saturday, August 09, 2008

By James Jay Carafano

We’re told that history repeats itself. Actually, it’s people who do that. They repeat their mistakes all the time. That’s the real human constant in history. And Washington may be about to give us another history lesson: repeating the gravest misjudgments of the Vietnam War.

When Congress voted to abandon our allies in South Vietnam in 1975, lawmakers patted themselves on the back, arguing that they had made the nation better by walking away from a bad war. Nothing was further from the truth.

The world became more dangerous after America quit Vietnam. Emboldened by the U.S. withdrawal, the Soviets became more aggressive. They embarked on an unprecedented build-up of military force.

The Kremlin directed a worldwide campaign of insurgencies from Latin America to Africa. It even dabbled in support for transnational terrorism. A decade later, the United States had lost the respect of its allies and found itself mired in "brush fire" wars around the world. Many questioned whether the American Age had come to an inglorious end.

Worst of all, Washington virtually abandoned the men and women in uniform. An exhausted military faced an uncertain future. It had skipped a generation of modernization to help pay for the war.

Equipment was worn out after years of jungle combat, while the armed services had to make the difficult transformation from a draft military to an all-volunteer force; meanwhile, politicians took a peace dividend and cut military spending.

By the end of the 1970s, the Pentagon had what Gen. Edward "Shy" Meyer famously called a "hollow" force. On paper there were plenty of troops, he told a congressional committee, but few were prepared for combat. The Pentagon lacked sufficient funds to maintain a trained and ready force, pay for current operations, and modernize the military.

Congress was shocked. But it shouldn’t have been.

Three factors contributed to military unpreparedeness. The first was a general disillusionment with the utility of military power. Indeed, many took the lesson of Vietnam to be that the use of armed force created more problems than it solved. A weak military would mean America would be less likely to get into future troubles. Antipathy became a substitute for strategy.

Second, there was a general malaise over the economy. Since Washington didn’t want to spend money on the military anyway, framing every fiscal debate as a case of "guns vs. butter" became an easy argument. A dollar spent on the Pentagon was a dollar wasted — a dollar that instead could have built schools and fixed bridges.

read the rest here -
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,400822,00.html

Instead of just cutting military spending, they should cut taxes. 

Are eductation and bridges in better condition due to the transfer of dollars from the military?

Have children been better educated during the past thirty years?  Are schools in better condition?

Bridges?

401K's?