Review: “The Wounded Giant” by Michael O’Hanlon

Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) promises “a military so powerful no one would ever think of challenging it.” His absence of defense policy or military experience aside, anyone who takes this promise at face value, no matter who makes it, will be sorely disappointed, especially when factoring in budget constraints that whomever is elected must navigate. They’ll want to read Michael O’Hanlon’s The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity.

The majority of the book is not for everyone. O’Hanlon is a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, which explains the array of statistics and the post-graduate vocabulary. At times, primarily in the middle, the book reads more like a master’s thesis than the standard “war book.” Nonetheless, O’Hanlon does an effective job of demonstrating that a streamlined military is essential to America, on both defensive and economic grounds, and the status quo on defense spending is unsustainable.

There are two types of people who need to hear him out more than anyone else. The first are the people like Romney, who believe any cuts in defense spending would be detrimental to America’s position as the greatest fighting force on the planet. O’Hanlon’s point is that the defense budget must be as strategic as the operations it funds. Western Europe is no longer the arena of war; do we need over 45,000 personnel in Germany as of June 2011?

The second think more along the lines of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who would be happy with an automatic 50 percent reduction in defense spending and do not believe America should be responsible for all the world’s problems. They are correct in saying the U.S. has gotten involved in too many missions that do not serve its interests. The fact remains that, due to a variety of historical developments, the world still looks to the U.S. to offer political, if not operational, support. The two likeliest fill-ins for that job are Russia and China. That sounds like a fun outcome, doesn’t it?

I appreciated O’Hanlon’s examination of the shrinking necessity of ground warfare and identification of possible cuts; he does not rely on generalities, which is a strength for him. His book might have been better served if he had put faces to numbers, i.e. an ex-soldier or DoD official who saw the consequences of military bloat. Perhaps he wanted to avoid being maudlin, but it would have simplified his case a shade more.

Still, if the Obama administration or a Republican administration in waiting is looking for a road map for the defense budget of the recession era, this would be it. This should be required reading for all candidates.