Welcome to the Realities of Warfare in the Information Age

In Bruce Berkowitz’s book, “The New Face of War”, he tells us there are five numbers to keep in mind:

1) $750 billion. This is the total combined world spending on defense according to the CIA’s World Factbook.
2) $380 billion. That is approximately what the US annual defense spending is today.
3) 3.2 percent. That is the percentage of gross domestic product that goes to funding the US military.
4) 17 percent. That is the annual rate that China’s defense spending has increased.
5) 3,025. That is the number of people that were killed in the 9-11 attacks.

The first number has been declining since the fall of the Soviet empire. Some due to the lack of spending by the Soviets themselves, and again, because of the countries no longer fear the Soviet Union.

Although the United States could be more efficient, no other nation is capable of producing the high tech weapons as the US stealth aircraft, transport thousands of troops halfway around the world, or hit targets within a few feet.

That the US spends 3.2 percent of it’s gross national product means that 98.6 percent is not. The robust economic machine rolls on while the average American is blissfully unaware of day to day defense matters.

China has certain advantages because they do not have a tremendous overhead, a fixed industry with decade long procurement contracts, and because they can devote their expenditures to defeating US technology or exploiting US weaknesses.

9-11 has shown us that while America is the undisputed ‘Superpower’, small terrorist nations or terrorist organizations can strike the US from halfway around the world.

“To deal with these threats, the United States must not only beat them in the information war – U.S. leaders must be able to decide when and how to strike them before they strike us. Doing this while observing the traditional rules of war will be a challenge. So will maintaining democratic control of U.S. armed forces. Welcome to the realities of warfare in the information age.”