Military Raises Recruiting Standards in Sluggish Economy

With the military winding down its presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and high youth unemployment in the wake of the financial crisis, CNN reports that the military is raising it’s recruiting standards.

“The Pentagon estimates that only one in four of today’s youth are fit for military service… It wasn’t always this way. Just six years ago, during the Iraq war surge, the military had lower standards. Only about 86% of new recruits had high-school diplomas, and just 67% of recruits scored in the top 50th percentile on the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Waivers excusing health issues and prior misconduct — even felonies — were not uncommon.”

“Those waivers were needed to hit enrollment targets… Now a whopping 99% of recruits have a high-school diploma — an all-time high… There are roughly two applicants for every slot the military is trying to fill.”

The Legacy of Tailhook

Retro Report: “It was called the worst case of sexual harassment in the U.S. Navy’s history and led to promises of culture change. But 20 years later, how much has really changed?”

How Effective is Border Enforcement? We Don’t Know

Brad Plumer highlights a new study from the Council on Foreign Relations studying efforts to secure the border and prevent unlawful immigration and calling on “Congress and the federal government…to develop much, much better metrics on how well its enforcement policies are working.”

“Government agencies have plenty of stats like how many miles of fence they’re building or how many guards they’ve hired. But they don’t report results and actual outcomes, such as the apprehension rate at the border. As a result, little is known about the effectiveness of various enforcement measures.”

Obama Should Take Guantanamo Standoff to the Court

Noah Feldman lays out a path for President Obama to resolve his fight with Congress over the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, arguing that his administration should “take some of the legal ingenuity that it has applied in justifying indefinite detention and apply it instead to closing the island prison.”

“Faced with a standoff between two branches, the system allows an orderly answer: turning to the third branch, the courts, to resolve the conflict… The reasoning could look like this: The president’s war power must be exercised pursuant to the laws of war embodied in the Geneva Conventions. And though Guantanamo once conformed to those laws — as the administration asserted in 2009 — it no longer does.”

“Congress doesn’t have the authority to force the president to violate the laws of war. Yet by blocking Obama from closing Guantanamo, that is just what Congress is doing. What’s more, he has the inherent authority to ensure that we are complying with our treaty obligations.

Pentagon Accuses China of Cyber-Espionage

The Financial Times reports that the Department of Defense’s latest Annual Report to Congress on the Chinese military “gives new emphasis to the threat of cyber-espionage from China, an issue that has been the subject of top-level complaints to Beijing by Washington.”

“In its report, the Pentagon paints a picture of a formidable and highly organised adversary which is using multiple methods to acquire technology, ranging from state businesses to students to old-fashioned human espionage… But while preparing for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait appears to remain China’s principal focus, the military has been expanding its reach around the world and contacts with the armed forces of other countries.”

Chart of the Day

– Matthew Yglesias pulls this chart out of a presentation by Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf showing the breakdown of federal spending (in shades of blue) and revenue (in green) as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in the 40-year average, in 2012, and projected in 2023.

“As you can see, we’re set for a large increase in spending on the elderly and a substantial increase in spending on debt service. But this isn’t going to crowd out the government’s other domestic functions. It’s going to lead to slightly higher taxes.”

“But this is the thing that keeps not getting focused on in budgetary debates… one of the biggest sources of short-term and medium-term austerity in the pipeline comes from reduced military spending… If the sequestration cuts to the Pentagon budget are really harming national security, then it’s truly perverse of Republicans to be so opposed to a tax component to sequester repeal.”

Global Pressure Puts an End to Somali Piracy

“Over the last 12 months, piracy off the Horn of Africa has nearly disappeared… according to the UN, the last vessel to be commandeered by militants was the Greek tanker MV Smyrni on May 10, 2012, almost a year ago,” Daniel Yanofsky reports.

“The disappearance of Somali piracy follows an increased presence of international navies in and around the Indian Ocean; Kenyan military intervention against al-Shabab strongholds in Somalia; and vigilance among vessel owners, who have rerouted and fortified ships to combat piracy threats.”

“From 2009 through 2011, pirates were attacking more than 100 ships a year. In 2012 only 24 ship were fired upon. So far this year, pirates have fired on four vessels but not successfully boarded them.”

Has Obama Bungled Foreign Policy?

Marc Ambinder reviews Vali Nasr’s new book, The Dispensable Nation, and calls it “the most trenchant criticism of the Obama administration I’ve yet read.”

“I have some problems with Nasr’s account, including his minimization of Obama’s own commitment to global non-proliferation, which is one reason why it would be folly for Iran to nuclearize under Obama’s watch, and with his reading of Iran’s repeated efforts to negotiate with the U.S. as something other than a consequence of successful economic and covert pressure.”

“But I find many of his arguments to be compelling. Russia and China were given keys to the vault in order to get them on board with economic sanctions; in many ways, U.S. policy is pushing rogue countries right into ‘the bosom’ of China and Russia.”

Obama Set to Approve Natural Gas Exports

“The Obama administration has signalled support for more plants to export liquefied natural gas, as the US embraces its surging energy production as a key new element of its national security policy,” according to the Financial Times.

“The decision over new export terminals coincides with a White House rethink of energy policy, aimed to give it an elevated place in US diplomacy… The White House is also promoting gas as an alternative fuel to oil and coal as a way to reduce greenhouse emissions.”

“US officials believe that being seen to restrict exports for the benefit of domestic industry would send a terrible signal about the country’s support for free trade… Under the 1938 Natural Gas Act, companies are not allowed to export gas from the US without a licence. For countries that have a trade agreement with the US, those licences are granted automatically.”

Stop Focusing on GDP Reports

Tyler Cowen notes that “much of the ‘missing’ gdp” in the latest report on gross domestic product came from lower military spending that “was not creating actual, consumer-relevant value for the United States.”

“Putting back that military spending would pump the gdp number back up, but that is distinct from the economy improving.  Fetishizing gdp makes the least sense when it comes to military spending, and it is remarkable how few media accounts recognize this point in even a partial fashion.”

Rolling Back (Parts) of the Sequester

Lawmakers are beginning to make a habit of avoiding some of the most noticeably disruptive effects of the sequester cuts, notes Josh Hicks, who looks at which agencies are benefitting from the politics of budget cuts.

“The stopgap budget that Congress approved last month to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year provided certain agencies with additional funding or budgeting flexibility to help them avoid some of the worst impacts of the sequester. The Agriculture Department benefited from that legislation, as it allowed the agency to avoid furloughing meat inspectors.”

“Defense officials are trying to determine how much the stopgap budget will change their sequester plans; the agency already has reduced the number of furlough days to 14 from 22. Customs and Border Protection is in a similar situation.”

The Huffington Post reports that the latest agency likely to receive budget flexibility is the Federal Aviation Administration, who began furloughing air traffic controllers this week causing thousands of delays around the country.

Addressing the Cyber Threat

Marc Ambinder lays out the various ways that the US can respond to the growing threat of cyber espionage and attacks, especially from hackers in China.

“It can build an electronic wall around the country, forcing all Internet traffic to be subject to deep packet inspection; and then, to compare those packets against known signatures from China; segregate them; eradicate the malware from them, and then let them through… It can require, or encourage, major technology companies that serve as Internet gateways for most Americans to boost their own cyber defenses, and then share, with immunity, suspected cyber threats with the government in real-time, allowing the NSA to swoop in and solve the problem.”

“It can secretly share with the big Internet companies the cyber techniques and tactics used by Chinese corporations and the military, giving U.S. companies a chance to develop cyber counter-measures… It can fight back, engaging in tit-for-tat  brinksmanship… It can provide significant incentives for individuals and corporations to protect themselves, allowing free market mechanisms to determine the structure and rules of economy-wide computer network defense.”

Was the Boston Lockdown an Overreaction?

Josh Barro makes the case that it “was a costly overreaction” to lock down the city of Boston last Friday as part of the manhunt to capture the surviving Boston bomber.

“It entailed large human costs, including lost wages and lost jobs, which probably totaled more than $100 million, and wouldn’t have been worth it even if the shutdown produced a marginal increase in safety… There are common-sense measures we should take against industrial explosions, terrorism and sharks. But it’s better if public attention shifts away from spectacular modes of death and toward the routine events that kill so many more people, such as obesity, handgun violence and car accidents.”

But Ross Douthat argues that in this case the lockdown was appropriate: “So far as we can tell, the brothers Tsarnaev were not necessarily hardened fanatics steeled for martyrdom… and if we assume there are other young men like these brothers floating on the fringes of terrorland – slightly dim bulbs who might persuade themselves that they can play terrorist without facing the consequences — there’s something to be said for the message that the Boston lockdown sent to them: If you perpetrate an act like this, you will not escape, you will not disappear, you will not enjoy even 24 hours as a symbol of resistance to the Great Satan. You will be caught, and quickly, because we will move mountains to catch you, up to and including shutting down an entire city to ensure that you stay cornered.”

“The point of this kind of message is not to deter, say, the next Mohammed Atta. Rather, it’s to shrink the pool of amateurs, dilettantes and potential freelancers by establishing an almost crazy-seeming level of American anti-terror resolve”

Is There a Policy Response to the Boston Bombings?

In the wake of the horrific bombing of the Boston Marathon on Monday, many are wondering how this tragedy could have been prevented and what lessons to draw for the future. Marc Ambinder explains why we shouldn’t rush to add new layers of security.

“Asking for perspective the day after we all witnessed something as horrifying as a man being wheeled away from a bombing scene with his legs blown off may not seem sensitive, but it would be harmful to say, as one former network anchor man who shall remain nameless, that the innocence we feel at large public events is somehow lost. Maybe for him. But for the rest of us, we’ve come to incorporate the threat of something bad happening into our calculus. We rightly reason that the probability of an attack is extremely low. And police departments and security companies do a generally good job of hardening targets. That does not, and will not change.”

“What will produce more fear is if the media tells us that we must be afraid of sporting events from now on. Never will a security cordon be perfectly impenetrable. Let’s figure out what happened before we make any assumptions. We do not need metal detectors at the entrances to malls. “

Senate Immigration Bill Checks All the Boxes

Dylan Matthews summarizes the key points in the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform proposal, touching on many of the major issues that have vexed reform advocates since the failed legislative effort in 2007.

“If you’re an undocumented immigrant who arrived in the United States before Dec. 31, 2011, haven’t committed a felony (or three misdemeanors), hold a job, and pay a $500 fine and back taxes, then you will immediately gain the status of ‘registered provisional,’ allowing an individual to legally stay in the United States without risk of deportation… the recognition-to-citizenship process takes a total of 13 years and requires $2,000 in fines from each adult affected… DREAMers — or those who entered illegally before age 16, graduated from high school, and have been in the United States for at least five years — would have a quicker path.”

“If, by the fifth year the bill is in effect, 90 percent of crossers aren’t being apprehended and 100 percent of the border isn’t being surveilled, the bill would establish a commission of four border-state governors and add another $2 billion in security funding… The bill would mandate employers use an improved version of E-Verify, an electronic system for determining the legal status of current and prospective employees, within five years.”

“The number of H1-B visas, which are designed for high-skilled workers, would increase from 65,000 to at least 110,000, and up to 180,000 depending on employer demand… A new ‘W-visa’ program for low-skilled guest workers, capped at 20,000, would start in 2015. The cap would rise to 75,000 by 2019… the bill also caps the number of agricultural visas to 337,000 over three years. A new agricultural guest worker program would be launched as well… The bill allows an unlimited number of visas to go to parents, children and spouses of U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents.”

Talking Points Memo has the more in-depth bill summary released by the Senate’s “Gang of Eight.”

Breaking Down the Obama Budget

Federal Eye has a roundup of how President Obama’s budget proposal affects various government departments and agencies. Below are key highlights.

Department of Defense: “The most striking part of Obama’s proposed $526.6 defense budget request is that it fails to acknowledge the prospect that sequestration will remain in effect beyond this year.”

Department of Education: “Obama is proposing several new initiatives aimed at expanding pre-school to all low and moderate income four-year-olds…and streamlining federal programs that support education in science, technology, engineering and math. He wants to expand on the competitive grants that have become a signature of his education policy, this time creating a college version of Race to the Top, which would award $ 1 billion in competitive grants to states that make college more affordable… The budget calls for $300 million for a new program that would reward high schools that develop partnerships with employers and local colleges and redesign secondary education so that high school students are learning skills needed for careers and college.”

Department of Health and Human Services: “As expected, this budget repeats previous proposals by Obama to cut Medicare and other health programs by about $400 billion over the next decade… The budget would also increase Medicare premiums charged to higher income beneficiaries… On the plus side of the ledger are two measures with particular resonance in the wake of Newtown, Conn., school shootings: A new $130 million initiative to expand mental health services, including training for social workers and other professionals who work in schools; and an extra $30 million for programs that research ways to prevent violence.”

National Aeronautics and Space Administration: “The NASA budget includes $78 million, little more than starter money, for a mission that would use a robotic spacecraft to lasso a small asteroid and tug it back to a stable orbit a bit farther from Earth than is the moon. That asteroid could then be visited by astronauts in a spaceship under development.”

The Washington Post has also created a terrific interactive graphic digging much deeper into the budget.

Obama Releases Budget

President Obama unveiled his fiscal year 2014 budget proposal, including “nearly $250 billion in new spending on jobs, public works and expanded pre-school education and nearly $800 billion in new taxes, including an extra 94 cents a pack on cigarettes,” according to the Washington Post.

“But the president’s spending plan would also cut more than $1 trillion from programs across the federal government — for the first time targeting Social Security benefits… his budget seeks $50 billion in new cash for roads and public works, $1 billion for 15 new institutes to promote innovation in manufacturing and $77 billion to make free, public pre-school available to 4-year-olds nationwide.”

Wall Street Journal: “The budget would replace the across-the-board spending cuts known as the “sequester” with new caps on military and domestic spending, higher taxes, and changes to Medicare and Social Security, among other things… The budget calls for raising the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes from $1.01 to $1.95, which the White House says would raise $78 billion over 10 years… It would also, for the first time, propose forcing banks and other firms to pay higher taxes on trading of derivatives by accounting for gains and losses each year, raising $19 billion over 10 years.”

Politico: ”One novelty in the fiscal 2014 submission was that Pentagon officials evidently feel they’ve culled all the high-profile weapons programs they need – Wednesday’s submission did not contain news of any major cancellations. In fact, it includes funding for a new Air Force rescue helicopter program; fully supports Lockheed Martin’s controversial F-35 Lightning II with orders for 29 aircraft; and continues supporting nascent programs such as the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle and the Marine Corps’ Amphibious Combat Vehicle.”

How Drones Will Revolutionize Agriculture

While unmanned aerial vehicles — commonly referred to as drones — are best known for their use in military operations, Miranda Green explains how “the controversial technology may prove to have its greatest impact in a peaceful endeavor: farming.”

“The market for agricultural drones lies in the technology’s ability to provide farmers with a bird’s-eye view of their land. Historically, farmers have walked their land to survey it—looking for areas that need more fertilizer or water. More recently many have begun using small passenger planes to look at their lots from the air. But since airplane rental and fuel costs can quickly run into five figures, there’s strong demand for cheaper alternatives.”

“Despite the potential benefits, UAV use by commercial farmers is currently prohibited under FAA regulations. Although the majority of drones fly under 400 feet, the FAA worries about complications with the national airspace.”

Addressing the Helium Crisis

Nearly one year after concerns emerged over the health of the Federal Helium Reserve, Jack Kemp provides an explainer on legislation in the House and Senate that “aim to avert the imminent shutdown of the Federal Helium Reserve…and develop a proper market to avoid a long-term crunch in supplies of one of the world’s most obscure but vital raw materials.”

“The 1996 Helium Privatization Act ordered the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to close all government-owned facilities for refining helium. It froze the helium debt, and ordered the Bureau to start selling crude helium from the reserve…at prices sufficient to repay the debt and cover operating costs… But BLM has become such an enormous seller, in a market with few other competitors and substantial barriers to entry… The Bureau has raised far more money from its sales than expected, meaning it will meet its target of paying off the helium debt early.”

“At the end of September 2012, the outstanding helium debt had been reduced to just $44 million. BLM will meet its repayment deadline within a matter of months… Once the debt is repaid, the helium program will terminate automatically… The strategic reserve is dwindling. Much of it is being turned into refined helium and exported. As reserves have fallen, fears have grown about the long-term security of U.S. supplies.”

“Similar bills introduced into the House of Representatives and published in draft form in the Senate… would extend the authority for stockpile sales… Thereafter, the bills would permit further sales, but require at least some of them take place on an open auction basis… with the ultimate aim of stimulating the creation of a private helium industry to safeguard long-term supplies.”

Cyber Security Plan Reaches Private Sector

“The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country’s private, civilian-run infrastructure,” according to Reuters.

“The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cybersecurity providers that have employees holding security clearances… Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program.”

“What constitutes critical infrastructure is still being refined, but it would include utilities, banks and transportation such as trains and highways.”

Easing the Sequester Pain

Included in the latest continuing resolution were a number of amendments meant to keep the full $85 billion of sequester cuts while reducing the pain resulting from indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts.

The New York Times details some examples of the new flexibility in enacting sequestration: “The final Senate bill did ease the hit of the automatic cuts known as sequestration somewhat, especially those that could hurt vulnerable Democrats. For instance, an amendment adopted Wednesday transferred $55 million to federal meat and poultry inspectors from other agriculture programs to make sure food plants can stay in operation… Another amendment shifted money to hard-hit tuition assistance programs for military service members.”

Wall Street Journal: “The Senate bill also included more money for an array of programs that enjoyed bipartisan support such as customs and border agents, disaster assistance, embassy security, and a new program to blunt cyberattacks and foreign espionage. But to offset those increases, the bill squeezed other programs, including Environmental Protection Agency programs and an Obama health-care panel.”

Militarization of Intelligence Creates Blind Spots

“A panel of White House advisers warned President Obama in a secret report that U.S. spy agencies were paying inadequate attention to China, the Middle East and other national security flash points because they had become too focused on military operations and drone strikes,” according to the Washington Post.

“The classified document called for the first significant shift in intelligence resources since they began flowing heavily toward counterterrorism programs and war zones after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001… U.S. intelligence officials cautioned that any course adjustments are likely to be more incremental than wholesale… But several expressed deep misgivings about the increasingly paramilitary missions of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.”

Senate Works to Finalize Government Funding Bill

Congress is hoping two hammer out a final deal on a continuing resolution to fund the government through September before two deadlines next week: the expiration of current government spending on March 27 and the start of a two week congressional recess for the holidays. But Politico reports that parochial fights are stalling the bill.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) “spent the day pretty much objecting to everything unless he was promised a vote on his amendment to protect funding for air traffic controllers at rural airports in states like his own… And that was not good news for meat — the packers, ranchers and poultry farmers who had been waiting patiently for a promised vote on their amendment to, well, beef up funding for the Food Safety Inspection Service.”

The New York Times looks at what amendments have made it into the bill so far: “The worst of the federal cuts to a major infant nutrition program would be reversed. Embassy security and construction could be spared… And child care subsidies, once seen as critical to the success of welfare reform, would take a haircut, not the hammer blow… Also, managers in some departments, especially the Defense Department, will gain more flexibility to carry out cuts.”

“It could reduce some of the most obvious disruptions in federal services, potentially easing the pressure that Mr. Obama had hoped would soften Republican opposition to a replacement that combined spending cuts with tax increases.”

Was the Iraq War Worth It?

Ten years after the US entered a war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, Meghan O’Sullivan asks whether it was worth it and notes that the “frustrating reality is that it is still too early to form a definitive answer.”

“Let’s begin by considering the factors we can reasonably appraise. First is that Hussein is no longer in power… Second, Iraq has become a meaningful contributor to global oil markets. It now pumps more oil than any other member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries besides Saudi Arabia.”

“Were Hussein still in power, Iran would probably be more quiescent in the region. But Iran’s nuclear ambitions would probably be even more intense than they are today… At best, Iran under the Islamic Republic and Iraq under Hussein would be locked in a race for a nuclear weapon… Another factor about which we have scant new information is the opportunity costs of a decade of American attention and effort focused on Iraq and the political capital spent getting others to support U.S. endeavors there.”

Chart of the Day

– David Wessel charts how Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will expand as a percentage of federal spending while all other parts of the budget — from other entitlement programs to defense and non-defense discretionary spending — will rapidly shrink under current policies.

“The U.S. confronts two big economic problems: Unemployment today, deficits tomorrow… The economy isn’t going to grow fast enough to eliminate the deficit. And because it will take years for changes to health and retirement programs to save money, there is good reason to enact those changes now.”

“That won’t hurt today’s fragile recovery. It will put tomorrow’s economy on a stronger footing… And, importantly, it will take the pressure off the annually appropriated spending that includes everything that is an investment in the future, from education to airports.”