The $663 billion US defense budget for 2010 announced by Defense Secretary Robert Gates emphasizes higher spending on counterinsurgency weapon systems, and cuts back on expensive conventional weapon systems. For example, there is a huge increase in the budget for predator class armed drones, helicopter gunships, surveillance, cyber warfare and special (commando) operations. At the same time, it envisions deep cuts in spending on the expensive F22 Raptor stealth fighter, large navy ships and anti-missile defense shield.
Here is a quick summary of winners and losers in the 2010 defense budget:
Key Winners:
1. Intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR): budget to be increased by 2 billion dollars.
2. Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV): Fielding and sustaining 50 Predator-class UAVs.
3. Army aviation forces: recruiting and training of additional Army helicopter crews and increase the budget by 500 million dollars.
4. Special forces: increasing special operation personnel by more than 2,800 and buying more aircraft for the special forces.
5. F-35 fighters: Gates plans to buy more F-35 fighters in fiscal year 2010, raising the F-35 budget from 6.8 billion U.S. dollars to 11.2 billion dollars. The proposal is to double the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters the Pentagon buys next year -- to 30 from 14 in 2009. The F-35 is a cheaper, more multipurpose plane but it can't begin to compete with the F-22 as a fighter jet.
6. Littoral Combat Ships (LCS): Gates proposes to increase the purchase of LCS, seen as crucial to counterinsurgency operations in coastal regions and to improve inter-theater lift capacity.
7. F/A-18 fighter jets: Gates plans to buy 31 more F/A-18 fighter jets in fiscal year 2010.
8. Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV): increasing the charter of Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) ships from two to four until the Pentagon's own production program begins deliveries in 2011.
Major Losers:
1. F-22 Raptor fighter jets: Gates said the Defense Department would complete its contract for 183 F-22 fighters and add four more, bringing the total to 187, before stopping the purchases.
2. VH-71 presidential helicopters: Gates said he plans to terminate the program, which had nearly doubled in cost to over US $ 13 billion and was six years behind schedule.
3. Transformation Satellite Communication System: Gates plans to cancel the program and buy two more Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites instead.
4. CG-X next generation cruiser: Gates plans to scrap the program for now, which was initially planned to be based on the DDG-1000 design.
5. Aircraft carriers: Gates also envisions to reduce the number of aircraft carriers from 11 to 10 after 2040.
6. Future Combat Systems (FCS): Gates will restructure the Army's modernization program and cut costs.
7. Missile defense: Gates will cut annual funding for missile defense by $1.4 billion. The losers include the Airborne Laser, designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in the boost phase, and additional interceptors planned for the ground-based system in Alaska.
Combat Search and Rescue X (CSAR-X) helicopter program: Gates plans to cancel the 15-billion-dollar program to build new search and rescue helicopters.
8. Amphibious ship and sea-basing programs: Programs such as the 11th Landing Platform Dock (LPD) ship and the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) SHIP will be delayed.
Gates characterized the budget shift as tailored to face the challenges of America at war with a host of players, many of them stateless and highly mobile, as opposed to the Cold War approach that long dominated the Pentagon's view of planning.
Gates acknowledged that his decisions would invite a lot of strong reaction.
"There's no question that a lot of these decisions will be controversial," he said at a press conference on Monday where he outlined his budget proposal. "My hope is that, as we have tried to do here in this building (Pentagon), the members of Congress will rise above parochial interests and consider what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole."
Going by the history of defense budget process, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are more interested in funneling money to their home states than in spending dollars most effectively. Democrats and Republicans both help themselves and their constituents' short-term interests while criticizing the executive branch for failing to make tough choices.
The announced US defense budget for 2010 is nearly $700 billion (more than half of the trillion dollars spent on defense by the entire world) while the total aid for the developing countries from all the rich countries is only about $60 billion, including about $20 billion from the United States, accounting for less than 1% of US annual budget. 
Here are some facts about the US foreign aid program:
1. Less than half of aid from the United States goes to the poorest countries.
2. The largest recipients are strategic allies such as Egypt, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
3. Israel is the richest country to receive U.S. assistance ($77 per Israeli compared to $3 per person in poor countries).
4. Even after the planned tripling of the US aid to Pakistan, it still amounts to less than $8 per Pakistani.
The planned $1.5 billion annual aid to Pakistan will be just over 1 percent of the $130 billion US budget for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. As Professor Anatol Lieven of London's King's College recently put it, "the stabilization and development of this country (Pakistan) is not merely an aspect of the war in Afghanistan, but a vital US interest in itself. Indeed, Pakistan in the long term is far more important than Afghanistan. The second is that changing Pakistani opinions will mean changing Pakistani society, and that is a project that will require massive, sustained and consistent aid over a generation." The professor adds, "Eight dollars per head is not going to transform anything much in the country. More over, the US statement emphasizes that the aid will be made conditional on Pakistan’s help to the US against the Taliban. This is a recipe for constant hold-ups, congressional blockages and the wrecking of any consistent, long-term programs."
The process of piling on all sorts of conditions by various interest groups and Indian lobbyists in Washington has already started as the aid to Pakistan bill comes up for debate in US Congress. According to Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, the first major condition for aid requires Pakistan to undertake not to support any person or group involved in activities meant to hurt India and to allow US investigators access to individuals suspected of engaging in nuclear proliferation if it wants to qualify for a threefold increase in US economic assistance. This is probably just one of many conditions that Pakistanis will see as an insult to and assault on the nation's sovereignty.
With Pakistan's growing population and rising expectations of its young people, it appears to me that the radical Islam is now spreading beyond its traditional home in NWFP and FATA to Pakistan's heartland of Punjab. It is also clear that the new generation of Pakistanis do not want to accept life under a feudal or tribal system that denies them basic human dignity. In the absence of significant economic growth (even the phenomenal 8% growth roughly equals 2.5m jobs), not enough jobs are being created for 3 million young people ready to join the work force each year, resulting in growing availability of recruits for terror outfits who pay them fairly well by local standards. According to Rand corporation estimates, the Taliban pay about $150 a month to each fighter, much higher than the $100 a month paid by the governments in the region. This fact has been amply illustrated by recent growth of the Punjabi Taliban who have been found recruited by terrorist groups for suicide bombings and violence within and outside Pakistan.
By adding more American UAVs and US troop reinforcements in Afghanistan, the commitment of significantly more money for greater firepower will remake neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan. On the contrary, it is certain to have major long-term negative repercussions for Afghanistan, Pakistan and the American interests in the region. At the very least, it is natural to expect more fighting and mounting American and civilian casualties during this year and the next few years, unless saner minds prevail and US changes course in favor of more political dialog and much greater use of soft power in the region.
Here's a video clip of Secretary Gates announcing his defense budget priorities:
Related Links:
Obama Seeks $ 663 billion for 2010 Defense
Pakistan's Choice: Globalization or Talibanization
Insights Into a Suicide Bombing in Pakistan
Feudal Punjab Fertile For Terrorism
Shaukat Aziz's Economic Legacy
Valuing Life in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Pakistan's Defense Industry
Threre are more reasons to migrate to Canada
1 year ago
13 comments:
As the people so the country. Short sightedness is the disease of pakistan. For the last 60 years, it had wasted its precious economic resource in creating hatred toward india rather than in creating infrastructure for growth.
In the short run the taliban could pay 150usd per month for the soliders. This is possible only till they are not the ruler and they can plunder the government and people.
Pakistan / tabila one majore mistake is that they are not understanding that they donot have oil like iran or iraq to sustain.
Presuming in six months time, taliban is the ruler where will they get funds to pay. Then the starting of another afghanistan. Sow poverty, reap poverty and distribute poverty. To add to its troubel there will be international embargo from their earlier friend USA.
Destiny is all powerfull. who knows what is in store as no body would have ever thought that american can be in economic chaos few years back .
So used to handouts, PK is still hoping to get some money from US and sink even deeper in the hole... If the ruling class sets up its capital in Bannu, Dir, Swat or any place in Baluchistan, only then will they understand the gravity of the situation.
Anwar
There is no concern from anyside. Politicians wants to make money in the name of democracy. USA wants to fiddle around afghan using pakistan for its ego trip. Army wants a retribution with india for bangladesh. People are fed and want immediate justice which is being handed over by taliban.
What is a country ? A country is people and only people. If the people are not open to see their own mistakes and blame others nothing is going to happen as the inherent weakness will not go out.
Intellectuals including this site wants to project to the whole world that all is fine with pakistan and the problem is only in india. I find comments that its is usa/israel and india which is fiddling with pakistan.
Probably usa / israel might be right but not india as it has its own set of problems and god grace the past history was that the india was focusing its energy more on developement rather than sowing seeds of hatred for anybody.
Immediately there will be quoting of varun / bjp / gujarat / orissa. Pls see this as a perentage to the overall india. Pls see the influence of fundamentalist in pakistan to the over all area.
India is not looking out for any aid. Rather america is looking out for india as a market to dump its stupid nuclear reactors for which all the politicans of india has already been sold out. When usa is not doing any nuclear reactor after 1970 why to india ???????????????? Till such time that has to happen USA will love india.
Here's an excerpt from an article by David Ignatius in today's Washington Post:
"We are all Taliban," one young man said -- meaning that people in his region support the cause, if not the terrorist tactics. He explained that the insurgency is spreading in Pakistan, not because of proselytizing by leaders such as Baitullah Mehsud but because of popular anger. For every militant killed by a U.S. Predator drone, he says, 10 more will join the insurgent cause.
Riaz
I think saleem could be a good sample which you have not seen on your modern muslim youth.
I agree with the anonymous who said "Saleem could be a good example of modern muslim youth"
While there are good number of muslims who understand the gravity of crisis islam in general is in and pakistan in particular,Saleem represents a excellent example of why taliban is growing and only growing in Pakistan.You do not need any enemy to destroy our nation-here we have enough saleems.I may have many times written this but again- every time a moderate supports a taliban at any level -it is inexcusable and equal to terrorism. Hypocrisy combined with high levels of hatred are classic hallmarks of Pakistan islamic establishment. No wonder we see so many muslim youth who live in denial and refuse to see that the real problem is that the citizens of our nation are responsible for 90 percent of the nations problems instead of blaming west or India .Blaming nonstop the nonmuslim world is not going to get results anyday!!! Again one need not to see any dictionary for the meaning of hypocrisy and religious fanatism -come to the great pakistan!!!
Anon & Anon:
I believe Saleem is merely reporting what the Washington Post Columnist David Ignatius about Holbrooke/Mullen meeting at the US Embassy in Islamabad during their recent trip to the region.
It is important to understand what motivates the Taliban if you want to deal with them.
According to a PBS news report, the UNODC estimates that the Taliban earned $90 million to $160 million per year from taxing the production and smuggling of opium and heroin between 2005 and 2009, as much as double the amount they earned while in power nearly a decade ago, reported the Agence France-Presse.
"The Taliban's direct involvement in the opium trade allows them to fund a war machine that is becoming technologically more complex and increasingly widespread," Antonio Maria Costa said.
He called the Afghanistan-Pakistan border "the world's largest free-trade zone in anything and everything that is illicit -- drugs of course, but also weapons, bomb-making equipment, chemical precursors, drug money, even people and migrants."
Less than 2 percent of the opium and heroin is seized by authorities before it leaves Afghanistan, with 40 percent of the heroin trafficked out of the country through Pakistan, 30 percent into Iran and about 25 percent through Central Asia, Reuters reported.
Central Asian nations intercept just 5 percent of the drugs flowing into their countries, as opposed to 20 percent in Iran and 17 percent in Pakistan, the report says, according to the AFP.
Worldwide, only 20 percent of Afghan opiates are intercepted before reaching addicts, while twice as much cocaine from South America is seized, the study said.
Of the 15.4 million opiate users worldwide, 11.3 million use heroin, while the rest use opium, the thick paste from poppies that is used to make heroin, reported Reuters.
Nearly half the world's heroin is consumed in Europe and Russia, and 42 percent of the world's opium users are in Iran.
Heroin and opium cause up to 100,000 deaths a year. Opiates are also helping spread HIV at an unprecedented rate through users sharing needles, the report said.
It should be recalled that the Taliban had completely eradicated poppy from Afghanistan when they ruled in 2000-2001.
Arab protesters demand democracy, but not secularism, says Michael Scheuer, former Bin Laden hunter at the CIA:
The Arab world’s unrest has brought forth gushing, rather adolescent analysis about what the region will look like a year or more hence. Americans have decided that these upheavals have everything to do with the advent of liberalism, secularism, and Westernization in the region and that Islamist militant groups like al-Qaeda have been sidelined by the historically inevitable triumph of democracy—a belief that sounds a bit like the old Marxist-Leninist claptrap about iron laws of history and communism’s inexorable triumph.
How has this judgment been reached? Primarily by disregarding facts, logic, and history, and instead relying on (a) the thin veneer of young, educated, pro-democracy, and English-speaking Muslims who can be found on Facebook and Twitter and (b) the employees of the BBC, CNN, and most other media networks, who have suspended genuine journalism in favor of cheerleading for secularism and democracy on the basis of a non-representative sample of English-speaking street demonstrators and users of social-networking sites. The West’s assessment of Arab unrest so far has been—to paraphrase Sam Spade’s comment about the Maltese Falcon—the stuff that dreams, not reality, are made of.
A year from now, we will find that most Arab Muslims have neither embraced nor installed what they have long regarded as an irreligious and even pagan ideology—secular democracy. They will have instead adhered even more closely to the faith that has graced, ordered, and regulated their lives for more than 1400 years, and which helped them endure the oppressive rule of Western-supported tyrants and kleptocrats.
This does not mean that fanatically religious regimes will dominate the region, but a seven-year Gallup survey of the Muslim world published in 2007 shows that a greater degree of Sharia law in governance is favored by young and old, moderates and militants, men and even women in most Muslim countries. While a façade of democracy may well appear in new regimes in places like Egypt and Tunisia, their governments will be heavily influenced by the military and by Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda. If for no other reason, the Islamist groups will have a powerful pull because they have strong organizational capabilities; wide allegiance among the highly educated in the military, hard sciences, engineering, religious faculties, and medicine; and a reservoir of patience for a two-steps-forward, one-step-back strategy that is beyond Western comprehension. We in the West too often forget, for example, that the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda draw from Muslim society’s best and brightest, not its dregs; that al-Qaeda has been waging its struggle for 25 years, the Muslim Brotherhood for nearly 85 years; and that Islam has been in the process of globalizing since the 7th century.
As new Arab regimes develop, Westerners also are likely to find that their own deep sense of superiority over devout Muslims—which is especially strong among the secular left, Christian evangelicals, and neoconservatives—is unwarranted. The nearly universal assumption in the West is that Islamic governance could not possibly satisfy the aspirations of Muslims for greater freedom and increased economic opportunity—this even though Iran has a more representative political system than that of any state in the region presided over by a Western-backed dictator. No regime run by the Muslim Brotherhood would look like Canada, but it would be significantly less oppressive than those run by the al-Sauds and Mubarak. This is not to say it would be similar to or more friendly toward the West—neither will be the case—but in terms of respecting and addressing basic human concerns they will be less monstrous.
Here's an interesting Op Ed warning Obama about possible loss of Pakistan to Chinese influence:
The United States and Pakistan are becoming increasingly divided over the fight against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. There are strong elements in Pakistani intelligence (ISI) who openly back the Taliban. And there is deep resentment against the United States for drone strikes and attacks against Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan. Now the Pakistani government is warming up further to China in the hopes of counterbalancing US strength in the region. Pakistan has already invited China to deploy 11,000 troops in their country. A high-ranking Chinese PLA delegation visited the Pakistan-Afghan border last year. At the same time, Pakistan is pushing for the Chinese to become more heavily involved in Afghanistan and they are actively buying Chinese weapons, aircraft and ships.
The fate of Pakistan matters not just because of how it will affect the fight against radical Islam. It also matters because Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And China is the source of nuclear reactors for Pakistan. Were Pakistan to move into firmly China’s orbit, it would be a big geopolitical win for Beijing. It would give the Chinese a foothold in the Middle East. It would give Pakistan a protector, with China providing cover much as it already does for North Korea. And we all know how loose the leash is for Kim Jung Il. Hello, but do we really want a nuclear-armed Pakistan where we have little or no influence?
The Obama Administration needs to stand tough and firm before we lose Pakistan to China.
Here's an interesting Op Ed warning Obama about possible loss of Pakistan to Chinese influence:
The United States and Pakistan are becoming increasingly divided over the fight against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. There are strong elements in Pakistani intelligence (ISI) who openly back the Taliban. And there is deep resentment against the United States for drone strikes and attacks against Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan. Now the Pakistani government is warming up further to China in the hopes of counterbalancing US strength in the region. Pakistan has already invited China to deploy 11,000 troops in their country. A high-ranking Chinese PLA delegation visited the Pakistan-Afghan border last year. At the same time, Pakistan is pushing for the Chinese to become more heavily involved in Afghanistan and they are actively buying Chinese weapons, aircraft and ships.
The fate of Pakistan matters not just because of how it will affect the fight against radical Islam. It also matters because Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And China is the source of nuclear reactors for Pakistan. Were Pakistan to move into firmly China’s orbit, it would be a big geopolitical win for Beijing. It would give the Chinese a foothold in the Middle East. It would give Pakistan a protector, with China providing cover much as it already does for North Korea. And we all know how loose the leash is for Kim Jung Il. Hello, but do we really want a nuclear-armed Pakistan where we have little or no influence?
The Obama Administration needs to stand tough and firm before we lose Pakistan to China.
Here are summary and salient points of Anatol Lieven's Pakistan: A Hard Country:
In the past decade Pakistan has emerged as a country of immense importance. Large, heavily populated, strategically placed between Iran, Afghanistan and India, Pakistan has since its creation just over sixty years ago been pulled in several different, irreconcilable directions.
In the wake of Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons, Osama Bin Laden's presence in its unpoliceable border areas, its shelter of the Afghan Taleban, and the spread of terrorist attacks by groups based in Pakistan to London, Bombay and New York, there is a clear need to understand this remarkable and highly contradictory place.
Far from seeing Pakistan as the failed state often portrayed in the media, Lieven's extraordinary new book instead treats it as a viable and coherent state that, within limits and by the standards of its own region rather than the West, does work. Lieven argues strongly against US actions that would risk destroying that state in the illusory search for victory in Afghanistan.
This work is based on a profound and sophisticated analysis of Pakistan's history and its social, religious and political structures. Lieven has interviewed hundreds of Pakistanis at every level of society, from leading politicians and soldiers to village mullahs and rickshaw drivers. In particular, his examination of the roots of popular sympathy for the Taleban in Pakistan draws on the testimony of people whose views are rarely consulted by Western analysts.
1. For most of the years since 1947, Pakistan has had higher economic growth rates than did India. Pakistan does not have the same pockets of extreme poverty, or for that matter the extreme wealth. The level of economic equality in Pakistan is relatively high.
2. Charitable donations run almost five percent of gdp, one of the highest percentages in the world and this reflects the emphasis on alms-giving in Islam.
3. A good quotation from a businessmen: “One of the main problems for Pakistan is that our democrats have tried to be dictators and our dictators have tried to be democrats.”
4. Agriculture pays virtually no tax and the government lends lots of money to businesses and doesn’t seriously ask for it back. As a result Pakistan collects far less revenue than does India, even comparing areas of comparable per capita income. If Pakistan were a state of India, it still would be considerably richer per capita than India’s poorest regions, such as Bihar.
5. The Pakistani state is nonetheless a lot more stable than most people think. In part this is because of the conservative structure of kinship and landholder power in the country.
6. The main threats to the future of Pakistan have to do with ecology and water, not politics.
7. The end of the book has a very interesting discussion about how U.S. actions in Pakistan affect different coalitions, feelings of humiliation, relative status relationships, etc.
Definitely recommended, as are Lieven’s books on the Baltics and Ukraine.
Sources:
http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781846141607,00.html
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/05/pakistan-a-hard-country.html
A recent Princeton study by Blair and Fair based on a survey of 6000 Pakistanis concluded that there is no link between poverty and terrorism:
The policy literature on the causes of militant violence frequently focuses on poverty as a root cause
of support for violent political groups (see e.g. Aziz 2009). Moreover, much of U.S. and Western policies toward Pakistan over the last ten years have been geared toward encouraging economic and
social development as an explicit means of diminishing the terrorist threat. Legislation before the
U.S. House of Representatives in April 2009, for example, called for the United States to
“strengthen Pakistan’s public education system, increase literacy, expand opportunities for
vocational training, and help create an appropriate national curriculum for all schools in Pakistan”
(House 2009).8 In testimony on this bill, U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke argued that
Washington should “target the economic and social roots of extremism in western Pakistan with
more economic aid” (Holbrooke 2009). This view also played a pivotal role in the April 2009
donors’ conference in Tokyo, where nearly thirty countries and international organizations pledged
some $5 billion in development aid explicitly intended to “enable Pakistan to fight off Islamic
extremism” (“Donors pledge” 2009).9 These policies reflect a belief that poverty is a root cause of
support for militancy, or at least that poorer and less-educated individuals are more prone to
militants’ appeals.10 Despite the strong beliefs about links between poverty and militancy that these
aggressive policy bets reveal, there is little solid evidence to support this contention in the case of
Islamist militant organizations. So what do we know?
First, although the hypothesis that poverty predicts participation in violent political
organizations is widespread in the policy literature it finds little support in rigorous empirical tests
(Abadie 2006; Kreuger and Malečková 2003). That hypothesis is likely so prominent because crossnational
evidence typically shows a positive correlation between overall poverty and levels of militant violence.11 However, the perpetrators of militant violence are predominantly from middle class or
wealthy families (Krueger and Malečková, 2003),12 and there is no reliable link between poverty and
support for specific terrorist tactics. Further damaging the empirical foundations of the povertymilitancy
hypothesis, Tessler and Robbins’ (2007) moderately-sized (n≈1,000) surveys from Algeria
and Jordan find that “neither personal nor societal economic circumstances, by themselves, are
important determinants of attitudes toward terrorism directed at the United States” (323). Using
Pew World Values surveys, Shafiq and Sinno (2010) show that the relationship between “educational
attainment and income on support for suicide bombings varies across countries and targets” (146).
Second, there is a mixed or negative relationship between indicators of poverty such as
unemployment and rates of militant violence within countries (Berman et. al. (2011) find a negative
relationship; Dube and Vargas (2008) find mixed evidence). Across countries scholars have argued
that levels of political violence are increasing in: short-term poverty (Miguel, Satayanth and Serengeti
2004); dashed expectations for material gain (Gurr 1970); and income inequality (Sigelman and
Simpson 1977; Muller 1985), but the overall evidence at the individual and sub-national levels is
deeply ambiguous (Blattman and Miguel 2010).
Given this indeterminacy, making progress in understanding the relationship between
poverty and militant violence requires testing specific mechanisms by which poverty could influence
levels of violence.
http://www.princeton.edu/~jns/papers/Poverty_Support_For_Militancy_24MAR11.pdf
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