US Pays $400 a Gallon for Gas in Afghanistan

According to The Hill:

Pentagon officials have told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee a gallon of fuel costs the military about $400 by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where U.S. troops operate.

How the Recession is Boosting the Military

The Department of Defense is rejoicing about its recruiting success in fiscal year 2009, due perhaps to the recession. The Washington Post writes:

The Pentagon, which made the announcement Tuesday, said the economic downturn and rising joblessness, as well as bonuses and other factors, had led more qualified youths to enlist.

The military has not seen such across-the-board successes since the all-volunteer force was established in 1973, after Congress ended the draft following the Vietnam War. In recent years, the military has often fallen short of some of its recruiting targets. The Army, in particular, has struggled to fill its ranks, admitting more high school dropouts, overweight youths and even felons.

Yet during the current budget year, which ended Sept. 30, recruiters met their targets in both numbers and quality for all components of active-duty and reserve forces.

Using data from the Department of Defense, Zubin Jelveh charts the percentage of recruits over the past two decades who have attained at least a high school diploma. During recessions, this ratio “tends to rise while in expansions the reverse is true.”

Does Military Draft Discourage Enrollment in Higher Education?

Katarina Keller (Susquehanna University), Panu Poutvaara (University of Helsinki) and Andreas Wagener (University of Hannover) have released a new study on the educational consequences of military drafts:

Using data from 1960-2000 for OECD countries, we analyze the impact of compulsory military service on the demand for higher education, measured by students enrolled in tertiary education as a share of the working-age population. Based on a theoretical model, we hypothesize that military draft has a negative effect on education. Empirically, we confirm this for the existence of conscription, albeit usually at low statistical significance. However, the intensity of its enforcement, measured by the share of the labor force conscripted by the military and the duration of service, significantly reduces enrollment in higher education.

In the conclusion, the authors write:

Compared to a volunteer force, military conscription imposes a high burden on an economy, both in the form of static efficiency losses and of dynamic costs. Potential long-term costs arise from the negative impact of military draft on the demand for higher education: forced labor under conscription reduces the returns to human capital to a larger extent than a (wage-taxed nanced) professional army and, thus, depresses incentives to enroll in higher education.

…We show that for 22 OECD countries since the 1960s, the intensity with which military conscription is enforced has a statistically significantly negative impact on the acquiring of post-secondary education.

A Criticism of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ From Within

Earlier this month, Air Force Col. Om Prakash wrote an article in the Joint Force Quarterly, a journal published for the he chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by the National Defense University Press, which criticized the 15-year old “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bars openly gay Americans from serving in the US military. The article won the Secretary of Defense National Security Essay competition for 2009.

Below is an excerpt from Col. Prakash’s essay:

The 1993 “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” law was a political compromise reached after much emotional debate based on religion, morality, ethics, psychological rationale, and military necessity. What resulted was a law that has been costly both in personnel and treasure. In an attempt to allow homosexual Servicemembers to serve quietly, a law was created that forces a compromise in integrity, conflicts with the American creed of “equality for all,” places commanders in difficult moral dilemmas, and is ultimately more damaging to the unit cohesion its stated purpose is to preserve. Furthermore, after a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly. In fact, the necessarily speculative psychological predictions are that it will not impact combat effectiveness. Additionally, there is sufficient empirical evidence from foreign militaries to anticipate that incorporating homosexuals will introduce leadership challenges, but the challenges will not be insurmountable or affect unit cohesion and combat effectiveness. Though, as Congress clearly stated in 1993, serving in the military is not a constitutional right, lifting the ban on open service by homosexuals would more clearly represent the social mores of America in 2009 and more clearly represent the free and open society that serves as a model for the world. Ultimately, Servicemembers serving under values they believe in are the most effective force multipliers.

Repealing the ban now will be more difficult than when it was created in 1993. It is no longer a Pentagon policy, but rather one codified in law. It will require new legislation, which would necessitate a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate. Most likely, leadership on the issue will come from the executive branch, and President Obama’s transition team has indicated it will likely tackle the issue next year. It is also possible the law could be struck down by judicial action finding the law unconstitutional.

Based on this research, it is not time for the administration to reexamine the issue; rather, it is time for the administration to examine how to implement the repeal of the ban.

Since the policy was adopted in 1993, over 13,000 service members have been discharged from the US military. Today, there are an estimated 65,000 active gay and lesbian service members.

How Countries Spend Their Money

Click below to view a world map illustrating the percentage of the total budget countries spend on military, health care and education.

War Deaths Versus War Duration

The map below shows the number of people killed in wars between 1945 and 2000: 51 million. Nearly a third of these deaths were Chinese. China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Vietnam suffered the most war deaths during this period.

In contrast, North America, Japan and Western Europe suffered very few war deaths. South America and Eastern Europe also suffered relatively few war deaths.

© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan)

On the other hand, the map below illustrates time spent at war between 1945 and 2004.

© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan)

Of interest is the large amount of time the United States and Europe spent at war yet the relatively low war-related death rate. In contrast, notice Africa’s high rate of war-related deaths even though it spent a relatively small time at war.

The world’s biggest military spenders by population

The Economist – Global military expenditure rose by 4% in 2008 to a record $1.46 trillion, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Israel spends most on defence relative to its population, shelling out over $2,300 a person, over $300 more than America. Small and rich countries, and notably Gulf states, feature prominently by this measure. Saudi Arabia ranks ninth in absolute spending, but sixth by population. China has increased spending by 10% to $85 billion to become the world’s second largest spender. But it is still dwarfed by America, whose outlay of $607 billion is higher than that of the next 14 biggest spenders combined.