By Wes Pedersen
There's a new book out titled "The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era." It's by Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert who mentored the New York Times' Tom Friedman.
The book gets a rave review from Friedman, who, like Mandelbaum, is not an economist. There is no ready evidence that either of them recognized the onset of the cash-strapped era in 2007. But they are right on one point: America is broke.
Thus, to talk about frugality is to talk of the need most obvious to most in today's society. We have yet, however, to prove any official familiarity with the word. That will come because it has to; our government cannot continue its spendthrift ways. Frugality must rule in Washington as in most homes.
We are not simply cash-strapped, we are cash-stripped. We are too weakened by years of war, a focus on economically out of sync programs like health reform, and too many giveaways to foreign countries.
We cannot be called a superpower much longer. Bigger than most, certainly, but not by a long stretch the superpower we were 10 years ago, or even five years ago.
The Chinese have it right: America is a paper tiger. We are in no shape to be wielding a big stick at any country of any meaningful size any more.
No need here for line-by-line reviews of “How did we get in this mess?” We do, though, need to look at some economic basics unique to the U.S. that goes largely ignored.
We have, for example, had nearly 60 years of throwing our money at other countries. It has become habitual to the point that no one in office makes our insane largesse abroad the major issue it is.
Since World War II we have dished out trillions in humanitarian aid, military assistance, and backup financing for struggling and failing governments.
We've built up enemy countries after our wars and given money to despots, and often we haven't understood why. We've even made loans to some governments with a wink, never expecting to get it back.
Originally, it was all intended to keep the Free World free and the communist world off balance. Both were good causes. But now we are ladling out bales of dollars overseas because “It's what we do.”
Those facts by themselves cry out for out for microscopic examinations of such expenditures.
Try, just try, to get an accurate accounting of what our do-gooderism abroad has cost us over the last six decades. Try to find out who has paid any of that back to us.
In the process of giving extravagantly, we have become a debtor nation. China, long a designated enemy of America, now is a major owner of the U.S. debt, having invested heavily in U.S. Treasury bonds. Japan, which we defeated in World War II and then financed its recovery, is running even with China in the Buy America lottery.
Lord help us if they and other investor nations ever gang up and foreclose on us.
Worth examining, too, is the government's failure to take into account expenses that will remain with us, or multiply, long after the announced closure of a program or campaign.
Nowhere is this failure better illustrated than in the “end” of combat in Iraq. There, 50,000 troops remain to guide and advise Iraq troops, police and functionaries for the coming year. They are still getting shot at and returning fire. Although President Obama says every effort will be made to get them out next year, he has hinted that, if Iraqi officials plead with us to stay, we may do so. That would shoot to hell any national budget now planned.
Two years ago, the war in Iraq was estimated by scholars Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes to have cost a total of $3 trillion. Today, they say, that figure is too low. To show how wrong projections by planners can be, Stiglitz and Bilmes point out that in 2003 the Bush administration's estimate for the war was $50 billion to $60 billion.
The analysts also note that the cost of diagnosing, treating and compensating veterans has proved higher than they expected. It will of course continue high for decades unless, as was the case when Ike Eisenhower was elected, the word goes out from the White House to slash veterans' benefits.
Global leadership in this era of cash-strapped America is questionable. Obama has yet to give strong evidence of skill in that area.
He has been stepping up his efforts to do so lately, and has relied in large part on the skills of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. m On the reverse side of the coin, she would be a handy fall guy if things go wrong with negotiations in the Middle East or in any other part of the troubled world. She has indicated she may bow out of State next year.
On the war fronts (one cannot say ex-war) Obama must still rely on generals who believe his strategy was wrong from the start. His ace in the hole here is Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He has demonstrated precisely the sort of leadership in a crisis situation that America needs at home and abroad.
Unfortunately, Gates plans to leave Defense next year and our presidential leadership will diminish immediately.
We've learned from our last two years. Our next president must have a record of proven frugal leadership. We cannot afford to experiment again with a candidate who talks a good game but cannot play it.
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Wes Pedersen is a retired Foreign Service Officer and principal at Wes Pedersen Communications and Public Relations Washington, D.C. |