Purchasing Firepower Parity
Not intended as a criticism of Matt Yglesias’ post, but a genuine question. You see the claim often made that the United States spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined, or something like that. How are these comparisons made? In dollars? At what exchange rate?
It seems to me that we really want to know two things: first, how much we’re spending; second, how much we’re “getting” for that spending. Some of the latter is hard to measure, but the military already tries to do it, comparing the value of one of our tanks versus one of theirs, one of our airplanes versus one of theirs, etc. So it should be possible to use these kinds of metrics to get some kind of “purchasing power parity” equivalent for comparing military “output” across nations.
You certainly can’t reduce questions like “do strategic nuclear weapons have any real defense value” or “how much is it worth to preserve our submarine-building capability” or “which is worth more: a new stealth bomber or a new Special Forces unit” or “how much recruiting and retention benefit do we gain from a given increase in spending on veterans” to one metric. But you could at least reveal how much of the difference between, say, Chinese and American military spending is due to lower labor and manufacturing costs in China, how much is due to superior American technology and human capital, how much is due to specific American and Chinese decisions about the nature of our force posture (driven by any number of factors including different demographics, different missions, different internal political dynamics, etc.), and how much is due to us just wanting (or believing we need) a bigger boat.
Like I said: an honest question. Anyone know how the numbers that are usually bandied about are calculated? Anyone know if a military equivalent of purchasing-power-parity comparisons is also flying about?
This question seems a bit too easily looked up to really be genuine. After all, SIPRI, the institute behind these studies, publishes their exchange rate and classification methodology right here.
OTOH, maybe I just don’t possess your zen of military spending levels, but my feeling is: If we’re spending so much that its proponents feel they also have to support invading a bunch of countries to justify that spending, then we’re spending too much.
— Bo · Feb 4, 10:31 PM · #
Bo: thanks for passing on the link. Honestly: I’m actually that lazy, and the link was appreciated. One of the things revealed is that Russian military expenditure dropped by 2.4 times because of a methodology change related to cross-currency comparisons. Suggests this is actually an important question to answer!
As for whether we have too much military spending: we spend a whole lot more than other countries on healthcare, too. Concluding that we therefore spend “too much” on our health is not a very interesting or useful conclusion in and of itself – you need to know whether we’re getting better or worse outcomes from that spending, and why. A big part of the conservative critique of left-wing proposals on health care is that the US is subsidizing global health-care innovation by having less in the way of price controls. It’s also a big part of the conservative critique of left-wing proposals on military spending that the US is subsidizing global collective security by having a much bigger military budget. Either or both of those critiques may well be wrong – but to prove them wrong, one thing you’d need to know is what we’re buying for the money, in each case.
— Noah Millman · Feb 4, 11:57 PM · #
Whatever the arguable advantages would be of subsidizing global collective security, it’s pretty inarguable we’re not doing that. After all, we have spent the last 4 years without the extra manpower to fight another war, and we’ve seen the exact same mix of dirty civil wars and long-running African feuds as we had before. Surely, this would be the perfect time, had we been providing said global security, for countries to take advantage of its absence.
In the process of proving the above, though, we have brought an additional measure of insecurity to a region that already had more than enough.
— Bo · Feb 5, 12:26 AM · #
A big part of the conservative critique of left-wing proposals on health care is that the US is subsidizing global health-care innovation by having less in the way of price controls. It’s also a big part of the conservative critique of left-wing proposals on military spending that the US is subsidizing global collective security by having a much bigger military budget. Either or both of those critiques may well be wrong – but to prove them wrong, one thing you’d need to know is what we’re buying for the money, in each case.
I really feel that this is an example of a misplaced burden of proof (was it you who detests the phrase? If so, my apologies.) Surely it’s the responsibility of the military to explain how, say, $30+ billion spent on the still-years-away F-35 jet fighter “subsidizes global security”? Demonstrating what we’re buying for the money, it seems to me, is the job of the military in making an affirmative case of their need.
— Freddie · Feb 5, 01:00 AM · #
I spent a lot of time in the summer of 2006 researching this question and I was stunned by how big in real terms the advantage of the American military is over everybody else or over any conceivable enemy alliance.
For example, take aircraft carriers — the U.S. has 80% of the naval jets in the world. We have 12 aircraft carriers. China does not have an aircraft carrier at sea. They bought an old one from the Russians, but they just fool around with it to see if they want a real one.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/08/war-human-race-just-isnt-trying-very.html
Keep in mind that military hardware can last a long time, so the U.S. has a vast advantage over up and coming China in military hardware.
— Steve Sailer · Feb 5, 02:18 AM · #
All 44 Islamic-dominated countries combined have zero aircraft carriers. We have 12, 10 of them nuclear powered, and every single one of them bigger than the any other country’s biggest flattop.
— Steve Sailer · Feb 5, 02:20 AM · #
Let’s take a look at Iran’s military potential:
- Iran has 23% of our population.
- At the official exchange rate, its GDP is 1.5% of ours.
- But at the probably more reasonable Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) rate, its overall GDP is 4.5% of ours.
- Iran’s per capita GDP PPP is one fifth of ours.
- In 2003, these death-loving conquer-the-world fanatics were spending 3.3% of their GDP on their military, compared to 4.06% for peace-loving America.
- So, their military budget in nominal terms was less than 1% of ours.
- But in purchasing power terms, Iran’s military budget was more like 3% of ours.
— Steve Sailer · Feb 5, 02:27 AM · #
Steve: that’s part of what I’m getting at. How much of our enormous military infrastructure amounts to sheer inertia? Donald Rumsfeld, bete noir of, well, everybody, claimed to be trying to reinvent the US military, realign it with a more plausible mission. He thought that meant boosting the Air Force and Special Forces and ditching the old Army. Jerry Pournelle, whom I know you respect, thinks we’re undferfunding the Navy, home of all those aircraft carriers. I could totally believe that the defense budget is inflated by 100pct just because of bureaucratic imperatives and genuine lack of clarity as to the mission. Once you start playing with really big numbers, preparing for multiple contingencies gets hugely expensive.
This may simply be an argument to the effect that nobody can afford to be global hegemon. I’m not sure if that’s where I’m going – I’m just pretty sure that the relative dollars spent doesn’t tell much of the story.
— Noah Millman · Feb 5, 02:33 AM · #
I’m just pretty sure that the relative dollars spent doesn’t tell much of the story.
Really? I don’t see how that’s a defensible claim in light of the degree of the advantage that Steve has pointed out. You don’t think the military could, for example, not go forward with its plans to build two $3.6 billion Virginia-class submarines a year? Even if we are to a degree ignorant about the actual relative purchasing power of the US military to those of other countries, I think those kind of decisions could be made responsibly, with the gap in naval ability what it is. (A compelling case has been made that the combined naval forces of the rest of the world would be overmatched by the American Navy.) You are asking good questions about the numbers. But with advantages this staggering, I think we can reasonably say that we could restrict the spending on these military-superprojects, which are absolutely beyond the ability of any other military in the world to match, or even to come close to.
And, you know, no aircraft carrier ever helped us kill Al Qaeda.
— Freddie · Feb 5, 04:26 AM · #
As usual Steve gets Defense wrong, you too Noah.
Aircraft carrier groups are very useful things for sinking deep water navies and controlling open ocean sea lanes. Up close in the Gulf particularly at choke points like the Straits of Hormuz they are sitting ducks. A Navy exercise with a “red force” used speedboats (shadowing and harassing for days) with a surprise attack to “sink” an entire carrier group at the Straits within ten minutes. The Navy had to “re-run” the exercise until the “blue force” could win. Even great advantages in processing targets can be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. As Stalin said, quantity has it’s own quality. That said in the open ocean America’s carriers have no equal (assuming that the new German and Chinese “quiet” subs can’t evade detection like they did in the Straits of Taiwan where a Chinese Sub surfaced undetected right next to a carrier). Well, maybe no equal outside China.
The REAL threat to world stability is the “ultimate equalizer” aka Nuclear Weapons. Once a nation has nuclear material from reactors it’s very easy to make the Uranium “gun-type” bomb (Oppenheimer did not bother to test “Little Boy” since he already knew it would work). The Plutonium implosion bomb (“Trinity” and “Fat Man”) is more difficult to make but more useful because it can be put on ICBMs. But even a “gun-type” nuke can be sent to the target via shipping container.
Western cities can’t be moved around, hidden, or defended (so far) from ICBMs. Or nuclear “truck bombs” for that matter. NATO is already talking about preemptively nuking proliferators so the next time the Pope says something or some obscure artist draws a cartoon neither Rome nor Copenhagen go boom! Thoughtful Europeans are scared out of their minds. No “neocons” talking about this, merely European generals considering the world around them.
The US qualitative and quantitative advantage is near or at it’s end. Iran has announced it’s new space program to launch satellites into orbit. Which of course can also launch ICBMs into Chicago or NYC. The basic technology is over 60 years old, well understood, and even nations like North Korea or Pakistan can and have mastered them. Aircraft carriers and attack aircraft like the F-22 Raptor or stealthy F-35 are useless against distributed and hardened silos that even countries like North Korea and Pakistan have built already.
Yes Freddie, no Carrier group helped kill Osama. Because he shelters under Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella. Bill Clinton’s desire to do nothing when the CIA gave him an out in 1996 predicting decades before Pakistan went nuclear (they tested successfully in 98) guaranteed a shelter for Osama that only nuclear war can break. Everyone would like to get Osama. No one wants the nuclear war with Pakistan that would result.
Steve and Noah are like Satsuma Rebellion Samurai wondering how the Meiji Restoration with stupid peasants armed with muzzle-loaders will match their skills with a sword mastered over a lifetime. Or that scene in Raiders where disgusted Harrison Ford simply shoots the swordsman with his revolver. Cheap, available, and well understood nuclear ICBMs neutralize the US advantage.
In response to Iran going nuclear the following nations have announced nuclear programs (which allow easy weaponization): Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, UAE, and Kuwait. Any of these nations can “neutralize” US carriers because our cities can’t be moved or defended. Worse still they can hand weapons off to cousins in various groups, AQ among them. None of these nations has anything along the lines of Soviet/Russian top-down control.
Nuclear proliferation is ending US military advantage, unless missile defense can be ramped up and made to work pretty fast. Heck if the Iranians can launch satellites there is no reason conceptually they can’t take all our satellites out. China has already demonstrated that capability and can take away at any time US advantages in communications, observation, and control.
We spend as a practical matter about 3-4% of GDP on the military, compared with Reagan’s 6-7% and Ike’s number (which I think was higher but I’m not certain). That’s probably way too low. We’re probably also buying the wrong things. Not enough UAVs, particularly heavy bomber UAVs that have global reach. Probably not enough nukes, missiles, or boomers. Certainly not enough missile defense.
[Hezbollah demonstrated the advantage of the dug in attacker: nearly sinking an Israeli corvette with one radar guided missile, and destroying many Merkiva main battle tanks as good as the M-1 Abrams with Kornet, Russian supplied anti-tank shoulder fired missiles. Up close mechanized armies and navies have no real advantage for now.]
From a geo-political matter, enemies of America from the Japanese General staff, Mao (in Korea), General Giap, Ayatollah Khomeni, and Osama have a certain military playbook: a “devastating” first strike designed to kill a lot of people to deter any response (in a democracy sensitive to casualties). If that doesn’t work, attrition warfare designed to produce in a democracy a surrender to stalemate. It’s worked often enough though not always. The danger is we likely don’t have the obvious means in a world where say, Yemen can have nukes, to deter this kind of thinking. What we are seeing is a slow shift to a world where guys like Pablo Escobar can have nukes. Scary. We don’t seem to have a clue as how to respond in our spending for defense.
It might well be that Aircraft Carriers are like WWII Battleships. Nice to have but not very critical to military success. [Most of our AQ kills in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia have come from UAVs. Those seem to work. They’re cheaper than dead pilots. No casualties (for us anyway).]
— Jim Rockford · Feb 5, 09:10 AM · #
Conquest makes less and less economic sense as a strategy every decade, so defending against potential aggressors becomes less and less pressing. It’s remarkable what a small fraction of their GDPs many countries are now spending on their military. For example, Taiwan, which is supposed to be so threatened by China, is spending all of 2.4%, compared to 4% by the U.S.. South Korea, which has crazy North Korea across the border, spends only 2.6%. Then there are Pakistan 3.9% and India 2.5%.
Humans, on average, just aren’t serious about war anymore. It drives Gary Brecher crazy.
— Steve Sailer · Feb 5, 11:35 AM · #
Not sure what Rockford’s point is, but we are a long long long way from a world where Yemen has nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles. And an almost equally long way from Iran having them. Hell, we’re a long way from a world where even Pakistan has ICBMs.
The larger point that the ultimate threat to global stability is the increasing availability of nuclear technology is the correct one though. Invading all sorts of other countries and making yourself hated globally without actually doing anything to lessen proliferation is a very poor response to this situation, though.
— mq · Feb 6, 12:39 AM · #