U.S. ARMS BUDGET AND ISRAELI NEEDS
Gottlieb, Sanford
You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's Rye, but can you be both a dove and an American supporter of Israel? Obviously, there's no built-in contradiction. Yet some of us who stood together...
...FOR YEARS the United States has been Number One in arms exports, with the Soviet Union in second place...
...The military budget pays for many clerks and others who never see a weapon...
...The Administration has a sporting view of arms exports...
...By its nature, military industry is highly inflationary...
...When it assumes the cozy working habits of the Pentagon-Lockheed type of relationship, it contributes even more to the inflationary surge now engulfing us...
...In fiscal 1974, the United States doubled its cash sales to $8.5 billion, most of them to countries in the Middle East...
...It likes to maintain the military "balance" by supplying both sides in a conflict where possible...
...Isn't it time for the friends of Israel to think about supporting a policy of reductions in arms shipments by the Soviet Union and the United States...
...For me, part of the problem stems from the tendency of some supporters of Israel to buy the Pentagon's whole bottle of snake oil in the hope that a few drops will lubricate Israel's security needs...
...As one experienced Pentagon official inelegantly observed, "We have airlift out the ass...
...Last year the Nixon administration requested about $100 billion in "obligational authority" for the Pentagon and the AEC's weapons programs...
...Finally, our bloated "defense" budget buys more contracts for the military-industrial complex...
...and (2) when particular firms run into economic troubles (where else do we find such beneficence...
...In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, Israel received $2.2 billion worth of military aid from the United States...
...Israel is reportedly seeking assurances of several billion dollars worth of additional American arms for each of the next several years...
...It uses vast resources and pumps vast sums into the economy without producing goods and services consumers can buy...
...It's painful, for example, to see the newsletter of the main American-Jewish lobbying organization publish, without qualification, the U.S...
...Nor should the supporters of Israel forget that, however much the Defense Department tries to suggest linkage between its broad array of programs and the specific defense needs of Israel, the Adminisration is playing a many-sided and dangerous game in the Middle East...
...This top-heavy command structure is matched by a weak combat-to-support ratio...
...2) Israel needs outside arms...
...Between them, they have managed to supply arms to most of the world's dictatorships...
...Officers and noncoms make up 78 nercent of our armed forces...
...In practice, however, there is little the United States could do but protest such a transfer...
...Not proportionately, but in actual numbers...
...In 1972 there were 75,000 men and women assigned to such edifying noncombat positions as full-time athletes and competitive marksmen and as staff for commissaries, post exchanges, officers clubs and NCO clubs, and chauffeurs for officers...
...In studying the contracts of the top defense contractors, Professor James Kurth of Swarthmore College discovered that new contracts are invariably phased in (1) as old 110 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS ones are phased out (where else do we find such splendid planning...
...Top admirals may be smart enough to hold a briefing for American Jews, but they can't afford to surrender their long-standing skepticism...
...The simple moral of this tale is: beware of snake oil salesmen...
...But even if Washington were annually to renew such support at a level of $2-3 billion, this would represent only a fraction of our enormous military budget...
...And until Congress cracked down in 1973, thousands of officers were receiving flight pay and not flying—at an annual cost of $75 million...
...Here are some of the major items the military budget buys: nuclear overkill, military commitments throughout the world, a top-heavy command structure, 1 million Pentagon civilians, military aid to dictatorial regimes including those in the Middle East, and more contracts for the military-industrial complex...
...This incredible ratio of one civilian for every two in uniform is maintained at a cost of $15 billion according to the Pentagon, $17 billion according to Senator Bentsen...
...However, as long as Israel requests only supplies rather than American combat forces, it is hard to see how anything beyond sea transport or airlift capacity meshes with her needs...
...3) the United States will remain the major supplier of such arms...
...agreement...
...Supporting the 2.1 million men and women in uniform are I million Pentagon civilians...
...Congress cautiously trimmed that sum, but will be confronted with a still higher request from the Ford administration for fiscal 1976...
...There are today more top officers to command 2.1 million men and women in uniform than there were during World War II to command 12 million...
...These are wholly realistic assumptions, but they have limits...
...The new ingredient in the arms traffic is oil money...
...For over a decade the American practice in supplying arms has largely followed this sequence: first, grants of free military aid, then credit sales, then cash sales...
...These limits shouldn't be extended into an uncritical embrace of military programs, which have little to do with the defense of Israel, may even damage Israel's interests in the long run, and clearly weaken the United States...
...The United States has military commitments to about 40 countries, and we station half a million troops in 21 of them, not counting the small but important military aid contingents in another score of nations...
...This figure does not include the special appropriation for Israel...
...Yet some of us who stood together in opposing the American intervention in Vietnam have drifted apart on the Middle East...
...No one objects to paying people adequately, but the truth is, American taxpayers are financing a lot of blubber...
...More bombs on more launchers, permitted under the Vladivostok agreement, have little military significance for the superpowers and less still for Israel...
...Some 300,000 American troops plus their dependents are in the NATO area...
...Even if the United States continues to supply Israel with arms, where will the latter stand a few years hence in the regional arms race in the Middle East...
...The lack of planes wasn't a problem during the Yom Kippur War...
...Another $13.9 million still comes out of the Pentagon budget to maintain 300 military golf courses in 19 foreign countries and the United States...
...The widespread use of military servants became common knowledge when Senator Proxmire introduced legislation to restrict this practice...
...the lack of refueling facilities was...
...We have more than 8,000 H-bombs...
...How else explain the recent deals to sell F-5 jet fighters to Saudi Arabia and antitank guns to Lebanon...
...So NATO force levels, with the possible exception of the U.S...
...Since the Administration pushes arms sales to overcome balance-of-payments deficits and the Pentagon pushes them to help keep weapons production lines open, it is clear that billions in oil profits will be exchanged for sophisticated weapons in coming years...
...The airlift of 1973 received lots of publicity, and the Pentagon no doubt will use it to press for more cargo planes...
...The Pentagon is a major promoter of cash sales, and Congress has yet to find a way to control the practice...
...The Post observes that, under the terms of the agreement, "Saudi Arabia would not turn over the planes to another country without U.S...
...Our nuclear stockpile contains the equivalent power of 615,385 Hiroshima bombs...
...What do they have to do with the defense of Israel...
...About 56 percent of the Pentagon's budget goes for manpower...
...Many generals and admirals receive tax-free entertainment allowances, up to $4,000 each per year...
...We already had ten times the airlift we needed at the peak of the Vietnam War...
...But we already have hundreds of military cargo planes, plus the Civil Reserve Air Fleet...
...The Pentagon, for its own purposes, often suggests a link between NATO and Israel...
...Even conceding that the armed forces, more dependent on technology than they used to be, now require more noncommissioned technicians, I still think 78 percent represents a lot of chiefs and very few Indians...
...Sixth Fleet to protect sea transport, are irrelevant to the defense of Israel...
...Today, only 17 percent of all military personnel are assigned to combat-skilled jobs...
...Yet the harsh fact is that COMMENTS AND OPINIONS 109 Portugal was the only member of NATO to grant transit rights to the United States during the Yom Kippur War, and it is not likely to do so again...
...For $756 million, the Saudis will receive 60 planes plus pilot training, special outfitting, and other equipment...
...Navy's pitch for an American base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean...
...What do these enormous sums buy in this "generation of peace...
...The sale represents," says the Washington Post, "an initial step in carrying out a Pentagon recommendation last year that the United States step up military cooperation with the oil-rich Persian Gulf nation, supplying aircraft, tanks and warships valued at billions of dollars over the next ten years...
...First, let's agree on three assumptions: (1) the preservation of Israel is a firm objective...
...Life at the upper reaches of the armed forces can be very pleasant, again at taxpayers' expense...
...This is a wondrous institution where billion-dollar contracts are let by the Pentagon without benefit of competitive bids, cost overruns averaged 300 percent during the Cold War, firms are paid for what they spend rather than what they produce, and gross inefficiency (such as Lockheed's 3,327 defects on C-5A landing gear in a six-month period) is rewarded with federally guaranteed bank loans...
...These can destroy the major Soviet cities 36 times over, but they cannot prevent Soviet H-bombs from destroying major American cities...
...Israel's needs centered on planes, tanks, antitank guns, and ammunition...
...Conventional or "general-purpose" forces may seem more relevant to Israel's defense needs...
Vol. 22 • April 1975 • No. 2
