The Republican candidates busking for votes in Iowa this weekend are predictably raising the specter of big government and calling for slashing spending on everything from AmeriCorps (as Rick Santorum did in yesterday's town hall) to the EPA (Rick Perry at today's "meet and greet" in Fort Dodge).
The fact that military spending is never mentioned in these rants against big government (save those of Ron Paul) is astounding considering that an overwhelming portion of our budget (60%) is spent on the military. The Department of Education, by contrast, one agency that Perry would like to dismantle, comprises a meager 6%.
But it's not just peace groups pointing out this imbalance. Even top leaders within the military itself are beginning to call for a new paradigm that shifts spending from Eisenhower's famous "Military-Industrial Complex" to the domestic programs that boost human, economic and environmental security.
Earlier this spring, Captain Wayne Porter of the Navy and Colonel Mark Mykelby of the Marine Corps launched a report called A National Strategic Narrative at the Wilson Center that argues for this shift. Porter and Mykelby are no marginal bureaucrats: both were senior advisers to Admiral Mike Mullen. In this video, they talk about what led them to write the report:
The report outlines five shifts in thinking and policy that our government should undergo. Special emphasis is placed on education and sustainability:
1) From control in a closed system to credible influence in an open system.
2) From containment to "sustainment".
3) From deterrence and defense to civilian engagement and competition.
4) From zero sum to positive sum.
5) From national security to national prosperity and security.
Porter and Mykelby spent two years researching and writing the report and are now running with it: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently gave Porter a position at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey to teach these ideas to tomorrow's military leaders. Mykelby is, among other things, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation working on sustainability issues.
Their report not only calls for the military to rethink outdated definitions of security but also asks citizens to take a stronger participatory role in this more encompassing vision of security. Whether such ideas are enough to dismantle our current well-funded (and energy-sucking) war machine remains to be seen, but it's certainly heartening to see such ideas springing from the halls of the Defense Department.