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Experts: Financial crisis threatens security

The global economic crisis is putting a three-sided squeeze on the defense budget that could leave the nation at greater risk, U.S. intelligence analysts and outside experts warn Congress.

In testimony before the House and Senate Armed Services committees, witnesses warned that the world, in many cases, will become a more dangerous place at the same time that many nations will have less to spend on their national security programs.

This puts a greater burden on the U.S. military, which also is going to face pressure to cut expenses.

The first factor in the squeeze is the near-term outlook for defense spending — which is decidedly downward.

“There will likely be fewer resources available for defense and foreign assistance,” said Robert Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Reduced availability of resources for defense makes it even more critical that U.S. planners determine priorities.”

For example, Haas said preparing to fight a large-scale conventional war might not be the highest priority, giving the large lead that the U.S. has on the rest of the world in terms of conventional capabilities.

Instead, capabilities for destroying weapons and targets associated with terrorism might be a higher priority, said Haas, as he and other specialists testified March 11 before the House Armed Services Committee.

Second, allies will be able to contribute less for common defense. “Economic constraints have at times been an excuse for allies not to do more for the common defense of the West,” said Dov Zakheim, a former Pentagon comptroller, who also testified March 11.

“That excuse is being buttressed by reality,” Zakheim said. “Whether excuse or reality, the net result will be exactly the same: The United States will be forced to bear an even heavier burden to defend Western interests at a time when it will have fewer resources enabling it to do so.”

Third, global insecurity could leave some regions unstable, and also entice some opportunists and bad actors to try to take advantage of the situation.

David Rothkopf of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warned that one risk of the economic crisis could emerge if “opportunists seek to use anger at the failures in a system that is closely associated with the U.S. to foment hatred, to fuel recruitment for extremists and anti-U.S. organizations and to simply produce distractions from local problems via the time-tested means of identifying foreign or domestic scapegoats and lashing out against them.”

Rothkopf also appeared before the House committee March 11.

Haas warned that economic problems could lead to setbacks in Iraq, where the Obama administration plans a major withdrawal of combat troops within 18 months.

Like other oil-producing nations, Iraq runs a danger of unemployment and problems with the central government providing basic services and cash to regional governments as oil revenue shrinks.

“In light of the multiple challenges already facing the United States, the last thing the Obama administration needs is the specter of an unraveling Iraq,” Haas said.

Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, also cited concerns about economic problems in Iraq in his March 10 appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Budget shortfalls threaten the effectiveness of Iraqi Security Forces, whose improved capabilities have made a withdrawal of U.S. combat troops possible, Maples said.

Money isn’t the only issue, he added: Without help from the U.S. and its allies, the ISF would suffer from a shortage of qualified leaders, a lack of vehicles and basic equipment and inadequate logistics capabilities.