On Tuesday House Republican Whip Eric Cantor gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation castigating the Obama administration for allegedly weakening U.S. national security.  The New START treaty was the subject of particular derision.  Said Can…

According to new analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, should all three of Britain’s main political parties meet the budget commitments detailed in their election manifestos, then the UK looks set to face the biggest public spending cuts in over a generation.  The report suggests that Labour and the Liberal Democrats will have to make cuts on a scale not seen since the 1970s, when Prime Minister Jim Callaghan’s government was forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund for help in propping up the country.

In face of the UK’s record deficit, all three political parties have been strikingly reticent about their economic plans – with all of the manifestos significantly under-reporting the likely historic austerity measures that will have to be implemented.  In monetary terms, the Conservatives, who are seeking to close the budget deficit the quickest, would have to find savings of £63.7 billion by 2014/15.  If implemented, such a reduction in spending would represent the sharpest, most sustained public spending cuts since the end of World War II.  To date the Conservatives have identified only 17.7 per cent of these reductions.

Labour needs to find cuts of £50.8 billion, but have identified just 13.3 per cent of them.  And the Liberal Democrats, who plan to raise taxes the most, have only so far identified a quarter of the £46.5 billion savings they would need to find.

All three parties have so far identified a number of third rail issues that will not face cuts, for example in public health, education or in some cases, defense.  As such, whoever leads the next government will be forced to make the savings by reducing spending from unprotected areas, such as the majority of government departments, projects and welfare programs.

Such will be the dramatic impact on public spending that the Financial Times (FT) has created an online ‘game’ in which players can decide how best to claw back the money required.  Some of the options available to players include cutting funding to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by 10%, stopping the building of primary and secondary schools for three years, freezing all benefits and tax credits for a year, and cutting the public sector payroll by 7%.  But even combining these four suggestions, a Government would only save £22.6 billion, well short of the figures suggested by the IFS.

The proposals put forward in the FT simulation represent some realistic approaches to reducing the budget deficit.  But when asked which of them Labour would not implement upon winning an election, Secretary of State Peter Mandelson sheepishly responded ‘When I last looked, neither the IFS nor the FT was standing in this election’.

Interestingly, the FT’s simulation does not offer players the option of scaling back on Trident renwal, because it ‘would not save enough money over the three-year period to be included.’  This is a fair point, because current proposals to reduce the fleet of Trident submarines from four to three will lead to only modest savings of approximately £3 billion.

Perhaps, then, it is time to think on a grander scale.  With the winning Government scheduled to make the main investment in Trident renewal (estimated to cost up to £76 billion) between 2012 – 2014, it now seems the perfect time to re-evaluate the necessity of Britain’s nuclear weapons.

This wouldn’t be the first time that proposals to eliminate the UK’s nuclear arsenal received a hearing at the highest levels. When the UK last faced similar economic problems, some voices within Prime Minister Callaghan’s government suggested that serious thought be given to sacrificing Trident on the altar of economic solvency.

The difference between now and then of course, is that the UK’s economic troubles coincide with the fact that the Cold War has ended and the UK now faces a far less threatening international threat environment.

While there would certainly be costs associated with abolition, as much as £76 billion could be saved in the short-term by deciding not to pursue a follow-on to Trident.  Doing so could also make substantial inroads into reducing the budget deficit.  Furthermore, the fact that the move is supported by 58% of the electorate suggests that it could be achieved without too much political pain.

If the figures presented by the IFS are indeed accurate, then the only alternative will be to pursue a harsh austerity plan.  And as the example of Greece shows, following this policy could prove dangerously unpopular with the electorate.

In an effort to avoid Republican delay tactics, the Democratic majority has tended to skip over the whole conference process in recent years in favor of less formal means of reconciling House and Senate bills.  In fact, while the 103rd Congress went to conference a total of 62 times, the 110th went just 10.  So yesterday was a special occasion – Nearly five months into the year, the first conference committee of 2010 came together for – what else? – a discussion of sanctions on Iran.

“It’s been so long since I participated in a conference, I’m trying to remember how they work,” joked Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.  To that, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank responded that the last time he and Dodd’s committees had met in conference, the Senate panel was chaired by Paul S. Sarbanes (House 1971-77, Senate 1977-2007).  

“Well I feel better,” Dodd replied.  “I thought you were going to tell me Alexander Hamilton.”  Har har.

All joking aside, as CQ Today so aptly put it in this morning’s edition, “Conference committee members spent more time trying to one-up one another’s tough talk on Iran than discussing the differences between the two bills.”

Rubber meets the road on only one issue: The State Department’s request for broad waver authority to exempt “cooperating countries” from corporate sanctions.  Some lawmakers chose to break from their biting language on Iran and vowed to fight against the main change that State wants the conference to make to the legislation.

Congressman Brad Sherman went so far as to say the department was asking Congress to “reward the fact that they have illegally ignored the law by writing provisions that allow them to do it legally.”

“The idea of country by country waivers is absurd,” Sherman said. “They will waive virtually every country unless they decide to simply ignore the law.”

Members of the administration have expressed that a waiver is necessary to ensure the support of China and Russia in concurrent bilateral sanctions negotiations – but Congress isn’t waiting.

“Iran and its spinning centrifuges do not wait. … We can no longer wait for a Security Council resolution that has been going on for months,” said Rep. Howard Berman.

In the end, the words of Rep. Ed Royce may have summed up the event:

“Even crushing sanctions might not do the job,” said Royce, “but we ought to try.”

The conference has stated the non-binding goal of finishing its work by May 28, but a final decision could come even sooner.

In an essay for the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Defense Secretary Robert Gates issues yet another welcome call for reform.  While the QDR may not exactly have been “shaped by a bracing dose of realism,” Gates does seem to be setting his priorities, one by one (very little by very little).

Yesterday in The Hill, Gordon Adams and Matthew Leatherman point out that the 2010 QDR:

… gives equal priority to every mission the Pentagon and the military want to undertake: current wars, future conventional deterrence and war-fighting, counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, stability operations, overseas presence, power projection, and homeland defense.  No mission is given lower priority. In fact, rather than change its mission planning, the Pentagon has added the new missions to the existing requirement of fighting two major wars at nearly the same time.

This is too much, and Gates seems to agree.  In Foreign Affairs, Gates argues that in the future, the U.S. will “only be as good as the effectiveness, credibility, and sustainability of its local partners” and lends credence to the Nixon Doctrine, which used military and economic assistance to resist Soviet-sponsored insurgencies without using U.S. troops.  

As we all know well today, military intervention is costly, both monetarily and morally.  Gates notes that, “The U.S. military, although resilient in spirit and magnificent in performance, is under stress and strain fighting two wars and confronting diffuse challenges around the globe.”

The U.S. military must be able to advise, train, and equip indigenous security forces, so as not to repeat mistakes made in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  It is not gainful or reasonable for the U.S. to continue to serve its current role.  For this reason, the U.S. “is unlikely to repeat a mission on the scale of those in Afghanistan or Iraq anytime soon – that is, forced regime change followed by nation building under fire.”

Gates offers five recommendations, including an emphasis on long-term security assistance efforts and a maintained focus on foreign policy.  He also goes after the U.S. defense budget.  Gates emphasizes that the budget is not well suited to dealing with emerging threats and opportunities.  I would also point out that the budget is not well suited to dealing with those threats that are not on the immediate agenda.  As is the case in the 2010 QDR and FY 2011 Budget, the Pentagon and Congress often focus on every possible threat rather than every probable one.  Along these lines, Gates also calls for more congressional oversight, to ensure that funds are spent properly.

Finally, Gates emphasizes that, “everything must be suffused with strong doses of modesty and realism.”  If this is the same realism that Gates referred to in February, count me out.  Something tells me, though, that the Pentagon may be moving toward something more concrete – something with the ability to elicit real change in priorities and effectiveness.  

But then, maybe I’m being overly optimistic.