Originally Posted by
Timbo
Anyone (besides me) in the Military back in 1992, when there was a massive BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) to help balance the budget? I was in the NH Air Guard up at Pease AFB, NH, when they pulled all the active duty KC135's and FB 111's out and closed the base. Within about 6 months, an entire shopping mall,many restraunts and 3 car dealerships just beyond the front gate all went out of business and the local housing prices tanked for then next 10 years.
The last manned fighter has already been built, so how many jobs will Drones provide? More, or less, than building manned fighters. Now multiply that job loss times all the other supply chains used to supply the US Military with men and equipment, and see what you get. Massive unemployment is what you get. So yeah, the transition is going to be painful. Many people lose sight of that.
Many of those jobs that will be lost, are in the high tech industry. Without Government Contracts requiring and paying for tech development, to keep us ahead of China's military, who's going to pay for it? We've already given China and India most of our low tech manufacturing jobs, I guess we can outsource our high tech and military jobs to them too...what could go wrong?
But fundamentally all that economic gain is a command performance, paid for by taxes. I think the local pain of a few mom-and-pops going out of business pales in comparison to the potential greater gain.
All of that economic capacity, converted to civilian use, will contribute to an improved economy, higher per capita GDP, and better QOL. Bases, runways, warships, tanks, fighters, and guns are things you have to have when you need them, and they have a cost. But if you don't need them, they don't contribute to QOL...those resources applied to civil housing, infrastructure, education, healthcare, etc have a potential for significant QOL improvement.
There are some management issues...
-First and foremost, you can't get rid of military capability unless you truly no longer need it. This requires a national discourse because "need" is a subjective sliding scale: global cop, defense of select allies, homeland defense...where do we want/need to be? If you guess wrong, the result could be regional or even global instability with enormous economic consequences (and not the good kind). While I'm pointing out the benefits of transitioning defense economic capacity to civil focus, I'm not advocating that we do so lightly or carelessly.
-The transition, if not paced and controlled, will cause temporary pain. Us older guys saw that in the early 90's...but we also saw the subsequent economic boom a few years later.
-Defense spending emphasizes high-tech, R&D, and education. If you allow those to fall by the wayside during a transition to a civil economy, you will pay a big price...maybe bigger than the peace dividend you seek in the first place. But that can managed.