The peace fallout
Published July 5, 2014
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, July 5, 2014.
The term “peace dividend” dates back to the end of the Cold War and suggests that nations will get an economic boost if they decrease spending on guns and other weapons of war. What’s poised to happen at Fort Bragg is the opposite of that.
The U.S. Army last week projected that under a worst-case scenario, Fort Bragg could lose as many as 16,000 soldiers and civilian employees by 2020. The Army further estimates that the Fayetteville region could lose more than 21,000 jobs, more than 40,000 residents and $11.3 million in annual sales tax receipts.
N.C. State economist Mike Walden calls the possible effects devastating, a billion-dollar hit to the regional economy that will look and feel like a recession. “There’s no way,” Walden said last week, “to paint this as good.”
For eastern North Carolina, that’s no peace dividend. It’s a peace fallout.
That Fort Bragg will lose some jobs should come as no surprise to anyone. As the Fayetteville Observer reports, Fort Bragg is home to about 10 percent of the U.S. Army. It’s the nation’s largest Army base and home to the Army’s airborne and special operations forces and the Army’s active duty and reserve commands. Units based there include the legendary 82nd Airborne Division and the Golden Knights parachute team.
Now that the United States has withdrawn armed forces from Iraq and is close to doing the same in Afghanistan, there’s no immediate need to keep the American military at its current levels. Because federal lawmakers constantly express concern about federal spending and deficits, it now makes fiscal sense to spend less money on defense. That’s exactly what the Army is proposing. Its latest report suggests that it will cut its active force by nearly half.
The Army report will test the political mettle of Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan as well as the state’s representatives in Congress. All would do well to fight to keep as many soldiers and civilian employees at Fort Bragg as they can.
But there’s probably no total victory to be won in such a budget fight, as other federal lawmakers will engage in the same pitched political battles to protect bases in their home districts. The Army’s reduction-in-force plan isn’t targeting Fort Bragg alone.
A more realistic battle plan is underway, however. The Fayetteville Regional Chamber already had put together a coalition to address the potential loss of an Air Force Reserve unit at the base. Now the group will make the transition to addressing the long-term future of Fort Bragg, as the military makes up about 20 percent of the workforce in Cumberland County. The group pledges to be vocal and visible during a public comment period in August.
The chamber also is working to diversify the region’s economy — a long-overdue step for a part of the state long dependent on the military. The UNC system already is aggressively recruiting active duty troops and veterans. The state’s university and community college systems will have to step up with retraining programs and other educational benefits if thousands of former soldiers and defense workers find themselves out of work.
State lawmakers will have to step up, too, with unemployment and educational benefits for laid-off workers and some kind of economic stimulus for the region. Local schools and governments will feel the pain and need help.
The Fayetteville area has long supported the nation’s military. It soon might be time for the rest of us to help support Fayetteville.
