Rumsfeld claims that weakness is provocative.
Donald Rumsfeld's op-ed last week, which makes reference to "More than $80 billion in unnecessary spending for pet projects has been shoved down the Pentagon's throat over the last decade," brought to mind one answer he gave in a recent interview I had with him, to be published in the next edition of The City:
Domenech: One of the challenges that, in American domestic politics, is happening right now, is this disagreement internally about defense spending, about funding. And it seems like thereâ??s not a very good message to the more populist Tea Party folks, who are naturally inclined to make some very significant cuts. Others claim this is going to make America retreat from the world. Do you think that thereâ??s a rationale behind what they want to do thatâ??s good or do you think that right now weâ??re in a situation where people are just talking past each other, failing to discriminate between efficiency minded reductions and those that are riskier?Rumsfeld: Oh, I donâ??t know. Iâ??m not a good one to answer that. Iâ??m not involved in politics really. I look at it, and Iâ??m quite enthusiastic about the Tea Party movement because it gets people engaged in something that is important, in helping to direct the course of the country. And goodness knows the course of the country needs to be redirected. And thank goodness that there are more and more people who have the energy and the concern about the country that you see manifested in the Tea Party movement.
Then you go to the question you posed. People have to take time and look seriously at how our federal spending is arranged. And itâ??s obviously totally out of control. We canâ??t afford to do what weâ??re doing to future generations. Weâ??re going to damage our country and future generations if we keep trying to do what weâ??re doing.
Now, you look at the federal budget and itâ??s pretty clear that as a percentage of GDP weâ??re spending at a relatively low level for defense. Weâ??re down to 4% compared to 10% during the Eisenhower and Kennedy era and everything else has just exploded.
Obviously thereâ??s no big bureaucracy that doesnâ??t have waste in it. There are plenty of things that can be taken out of every major government bureaucracy, including the Department of Defense. Every year as I recall the Congress shoved $10 billion down the Pentagonâ??s throat that we didnâ??t want for things that had nothing to do with our national security.
On the other hand weâ??ve also made a series of mistakes in this country where weâ??ve overreacted on defense. After the end of the Cold War it was the end of history, and we could beat our weapons into plowshares. So there was this drawdown where we didnâ??t fund the things we needed, they just masked it. They simply didnâ??t invest in infrastructure, in our military infrastructure around the world, which you cannot do year after year, five, six, seven years.
Itâ??s like your house. You donâ??t have to paint it this yearâ??letâ??s do it next year. If you worry about the roof, weâ??ll do that the following year and something else. And when you put that stuff off and it doesnâ??t show, itâ??s not like anyone is going to run a campaign against you for allowing infrastructure repairs to sit for a year.
But on the other hand you end up after 10 years of that, and following the Cold War, and when George W. Bush arrived we had damaged our military and our intelligence capabilities. The result was that we needed to do some catch-up. Weâ??ve done that probably three times in my life, maybe four where weâ??ve made that decision as a society and then paid for it.
The value of peace, and peace through strength, and deterrence has to be understood. Weakness is provocative. And to the extent you behave in a way that encourages people to take actions against you, youâ??ve made a terrible mistake as a country. We have to avoid that this time. I think people in our country generally understand that.
The balance of the interview will be published in the next few weeks.
(AP Photo)
