Military Spending/Gross Domestic Product = Nonsense for Budget Policymaking

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Had we been inclined to borrow a phrase from Ronald Reagan, we might have chided the Pentagon bigwigs by saying, "Well, there you go again." Early this year, as in virtually every year since the Korean War, the military chiefs tried to minimize the enormousness of their proposed basic budget ($515.4 billion) by expressing it as a percentage of the concurrent gross domestic product (GDP). By indulging in this gambit, they placed themselves in a great deal of bad company.

As usual, the news media played along with this trick, which then occupied many commentators and fueled heated debates about the adequacy of the defense budget. The New York Times has got this year's show off to a …