In World War II, our military needs were met in the same manner most Michael Bay movies are made: By pumping in more money and explosions.
In such an era, the M1 Abrams tank would have triumphed and proliferated. Today, despite Congress’s insistence on the continued production of tanks, the whimsical Michael Bay approach to military matters is outdated.
Rather than transform into futuristic robots, more than 2,000 Abrams tanks are becoming costly placeholders in a deserted parking lot hours north of Reno, Nev. Due to ceaseless production since WWII, the Army now finds itself with a surplus of tanks in a world where, as Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno put it, it’s unlikely “we’ll ever see a straight conventional conflict again in the future.”
This situation is not without its positives. By Army calculations, halting the production, maintenance and refurbishing of the tanks for a three-year period while new technologies are developed will yield a taxpayer savings of $3 billion. In the face of a nearly $500 billion Defense Department budget cut over the next decade, it is a modest sum but a step in the right direction.
Congress, however, thinks otherwise. The confounding conclusion to make more tanks was reached by 173 House members of both Democratic and Republican parties. The half-baked idea was mailed to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on April 20 by a presumably stoned Congress.
I’ll also assume they spent the remainder of the day battling for year-round production of Girl Scout cookies and “Adventure Time.”
The prospect of a giggly Congress is about as appealing as the reality; Congress, out of touch with national interests, is pandering to pet projects and lobbyists. While the letter declares, “modest and continued Abrams production for the Army is necessary to protect the industrial base,” a different story involving tank manufacturer General Dynamics has emerged.
The $32 billion-earning private company employs approximately 95,000 people, including the 16,000 jobs associated with the factory in Lima, Ohio where the tanks are made. This figure likely omits the 29 lobbying companies it hires and the 137 congressmen who signed the letter and received more than $2 million in campaign contributions from GD since 2001.
Data collected by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics shows that in 2011 alone, lobbying expenditures for GD totaled more than $11 million, amounting to more than $84 million in an 11-year span. Further studies by journalism watchdog group the Center for Public Integrity show that donations often coincide with periods where tank fabrication is up for voting.
GD’s Vice President for Government Relations and Communications Kendell Pease said, “Shame on us if we don’t go and tell [Congress] our side, because the Army is doing the same thing as we’re doing, having just as many meetings as we are.” Pease, however, is only protecting the interests of a minority, which he admits is not part of the industrial base and will not perish during the production hiatus.
I sympathize with workers at the Lima facility and related plants across the country who may be seeking other employment, but producing tanks the Army neither needs nor wants will not benefit the nation as a whole.
Even if the $3 billion saved isn’t magically re-appropriated to more worthwhile causes — like education or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which only received a comparatively small $445 million for the 2012 fiscal year — the production will still leave innumerable useless tanks on our hands. At this point, they’d either go to waste in a parking lot or be sold abroad.
Unfortunately, we’ve frequently been met with situations that blow up in our faces and enemies who wish to make that phrase literal. Our money and weapons have ended up in the hands of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and countless others.
I’d like to think the surplus tanks would not find their way to some of our current, shaky allies or even enemies, but not all things are as certain as the strength of the M1 Abrams.
