Response to the White House’s Cost Plus 50 Strategy
|In the Japan Times they have an op-ed published in response to the White House’s Cost Plus 50 strategy for paying for the stationing of US troops.
The “Cost Plus 50” formula means the White House is aiming for allies to pay 100 percent of U.S. stationing costs plus a premium of 50 percent on top of that. While there are arguments to be made about whether such a goal is even achievable (spoiler alert: it is not), it is important to highlight some of the bad assumptions that underwrite the belief that “allies don’t pay enough.” (……..)
Bad assumption 4: It is easy to tally up the cost of stationing forces overseas.
Japan Times
Reality: For the administration to demand Cost Plus 50, it must first assess how much it actually costs to station forces overseas. Take it from a former alliance manager who has run the “cost drill,” there are simply too many inputs to produce a figure without arbitrarily making decisions on what to include or exclude.
Do you include the salaries of overseas service members? What about costs for moving personnel and their families? How about rotational units who are only in a host nation for a few months out of the year? Do you add the cost of running overseas schools for dependent family members? Commissaries? Recreation areas? Uniform clothing sales stores?
How about research and development for the equipment that is stationed there? Should a country pay more if it has F-35s instead of F-16s or ballistic missile defense-capable destroyers instead of non-BMD capable ones?
The list goes on and on, and even then, the list ignores things like sunk costs and the fact those forces are overseas for U.S. interests.
You can read more at the link.
TL;DR version:
“How dare you require us to pay forbour own defense?!?!?”
Side note to the bean counter quoted in the article: all those accessories you named, civilian employees, DoDDS, commissary, housing, relocation all those costs go away if the troops go away. What the average American doesn’t know is although Korea has been in the news every country does pay toward our military presence in their country. Of course here, I’m preaching to the choir…
Heck shoot for the moon so to speak. On the personnel side full TDY plus Per Diem for every living body supporting the Military Overseas. What’s the worse that can happen? They say no?