SOUND ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT AS AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF A PRUDENT DEFENSE POLICY.

SOUND ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT AS AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF A PRUDENT DEFENSE POLICY.

The defense policy of a nation cannot in practical terms be separated from the economic policies of the nation. There is an intrinsic link between a healthy economic state in a nation and its ability to defend itself on the long run both from internal and external enemies. The soundness of one’s defense infrastructure cannot ultimately be separated from the financial policies and health of the nation enunciating those policies.

The 20^th century revealed in no small measure the link between the depth of your pocket and your ability to win in any conflict particularly when it is protracted as modern conflicts amongst major powers are tending to be. Using the two major conflicts of the 20^th century as a case study, it is obvious that the nations that had the capacity to maintain a staying power in a protracted conflict tend to come out the winners.

Chinese communist leader Mao Tse Tsung once enthused that ‘God is on the side of the bigger battalion’ in any conflict; but the nations that were soundly defeated in both WW1 and WW2 started the wars with the Bigger Battalion mentality and were roundly defeated by the nations with deeper pockets and ultimately staying power. The goal and key is not the quantity of the  outlay to start with but the power and ability to not only sustain your outlay no matter how small it may appear to start with, but the ability to grow the outlay on an exponential basis as the conflict becomes protracted.   

If your ability to sustain and grow your outlay on an exponential basis is compromised by your present posturing, then defeat is around the corner in the long-run as the conflict becomes protracted and ultimately is decided in the theater of attrition. Better a small that becomes big on the long-run than a big that becomes small on the long-run.   No country enunciated this principle better than the US in her outings in the two conflicts of the first half of the 20^th century.

 None of the countries that engaged the US in the First and Second World War would have welcomed the US as an adversary had they known the true strength of America’s production capacity. Both Germany and Japan were first defeated psychologically before their battle field defeats simply because they found themselves tangoing with an adversary that seemed to have unlimited resources.

By 1944 it had become obvious to both Germany and Japan in WW2 that they had made a wrong choice in picking adversaries by betting against the United States of America. President Franklin Roosevelt knew during the Depression years that America’s great security lay not in the protection offered by the two great oceans but in the unlimited capacity of the American nation and workman. When he announced in 1941 his plans to build 100,000 aircraft for the US Army air force and 80,000 tanks for the army, his adversaries thought he was bluffing. Well time showed he was not bluffing.

President Roosevelt is my personal role model for a leader who knew how to balance the security of a nation in terms of the relationship between the bread basket and the arsenal. In the second half of the 20^th century, it seemed the Great Powers except for Great Britain had learnt the lessons of the immediate past in the reverse. Both the US and the Soviet Union went on an arsenal building spree that did not necessarily accrue to great victories as observed in the Vietnam War for the US and in Afghanistan for the Soviet Union.

All it succeeded in doing was to put America into a cycle of indebtedness which seems to be on the upswing, and to take the Soviet Union into the drain pipe. In this first half of the 21^st century, the same cycle is about to repeat itself as the bigger battalion mentality has engulfed the Great Powers once more, resulting in the committing of Billions of Dollars into Defense procurements that may never be used in reality while the nation in reality is sinking into a deeper debt sinkhole that ultimately limits your capacity and flexibility for exponential growth in defense capability when you sincerely need it.

Great Britain, Germany and France are the only major powers today that are pursuing a pragmatic policy in defense spending and plans that wisely put butter before guns.  Because common sense will tell you that if the economic capacity of a nation is well harnessed its productive powers will be released when truly needed.