Wednesday, March 1, 2017

How to Start New (and Positive) Habit

In order to answer the question, "How do you effectively start a habit?" — first, we must understand what a habit is.

A habit is task that has become so consistently ingrained that it begins to be carried out autonomously—by the unconscious mind—such as drinking a cup of morning coffee every day.

Why are habits important for accomplishing long term goals?

Because the moment you form a habit, it signifies that you have now transcended out the window pane that normally accompanies taking up a new task.

When something becomes ingrained as a habit, it becomes much less unpleasant to carry out that task. It just becomes natural.

The reason it is so difficult to turn a productive undertaking into a consistent practice is because it is often painful to carry out productive task. If the task is drinking coffee, or sleeping every night, it is easy to turn those tasks into habits because they are pleasurable. However, if the task is painful, like writing and editing articles, getting up and going to the gym, setting aside to time to do affirmations, then it is far more difficult to become consistent.

We are hardwired to avoid pain. Pain is helpful. It instructs us what to avoid so we don’t die, and our species can continue to reproduce.

The ease at which we can establish a habit, is directly proportional to how quickly we receive our pleasure or reward, and inversely proportional to how much pain or effort it takes to get there.

99% of the things you do are habits. The way you think is a habit. The way you present yourself to other people is a habit. Whether you start books and never finish them. They are all products of the thoughts you habitually tell yourself and the actions that you repeatedly carry out. Whatever habit you have, in some way your mind believes it is serving you.

If your lazy, perhaps it frees you up from trying and failing. If you have a victim mentality, perhaps it liberates you from personal responsibility.

In essence, you are automatic creature. However, fortunately, habits can be changed.

That is where self awareness comes into play. Self awareness is the one variable in human existence, which separates us from all other species and allows us to accomplish amazing things. In our unique ability to be aware of our habits, we have the opportunity to re-engineer them and establish new ones that serve us.

For a short period of time, we can choose to use our free will (or DISCIPLINE), in the face of resistance to push past the initial window of pain, make something become natural/expected, and thus, establish a new pattern.

Now there is a bunch of conflicting literature on how long it takes to do that. I have heard 21 days. 40 days. etc.

In my opinion, that’s all nonsense and propaganda. The amount of time it takes varies from person to person. There is only one way to tell if you established a habit.

I have used this measuring stick time and time again, to determine whether I have finally established a new pattern in my life.

The answer is two-fold:

A) when it task becomes noticeably less painful to complete
B) when you go to bed without doing it, it actually feels like your missing something

When you meet these to criteria, then you know it is ingrained.

I hope this helps to establish habits that will serve you and your long term goals. By becoming aware of your patterns and re-engineering them so that they meet this criteria, you will be surprised at what you accomplished.

The Truth About the US Military Budget

Alright, late to this party, so I hope it doesn't get buried.

Full disclosure: as an officer in the military, I see a lot more of the organizational and budgetary side of things than most, so I wanted to share my two cents on military spending and let you decide on whether we actually spend too much.

As OP mentioned, there's a lot of metrics people use on US budgeting. Let me explore some of these issues in detail and hopefully bust a few myths, give you a historical background, and tell you what we currently peg spending on.

Military Spending - And Its Myths

Yes, the US spends $600 billion dollars on defense. And yes, that's more than the next 7-8 countries combined (assuming China's budget is honest, which we believe is not). And yes, the US spends about 36% of the worlds total spending on military.

But, as OP also mentioned, as a function of GDP, the US is at 3.3% - lower than some nations (like Russia) and a far cry from the 5.6% the US spent in 1988 near the tail end of the Cold War. Source: World Bank.

In the post WW2 world, this is at an all time low per the CFR with it having peaked at 16% around the time of the Korean War.

So which metric is better to use?

Well the issue with looking at nominal spending is that nominal spending doesn't correct for cost of living.

Take into consideration what the military actually spends its money on. You can use Table 5.1 of the GPO or this nifty Official DOD Budget Request 2017 (yes, all this stuff is public) to see the pretty breakdowns.

Per the GPO, for 2013:
  • Personnel Wages - 25%
  • Operations and Maintenance - 43%
  • Procurement - 16%
  • R&D - 10%
  • Atomic Energy Defense Activities - 3%
  • Other - 3%
So right off the bat, we need to kill the myth that buying new equipment costs us the most money. It simply doesn't.

Why did I bring up cost of living? Let's take a look at personnel wages and benefits shall we. Per the DOD budget request, this chart shows that:
  • $130 billion was requested just for military personnel wages for the 2.1 million active + reserve
  • A total of $177.9 billion was requested on just military personnel wages + benefits
  • Another $72.9 billion was requested for civilian pay and benefits for the 760,000 civilian FTEs in the DOD
  • A full $250.8 billion or 48% of the DOD base budget is allocated to JUST pay and benefits
What does this mean? Consider that a Chinese soldier is paid roughly a tenth of the wages of a US soldier. So sure, if we went to a Chinese pay scale, we could save $120 billion overnight. But that's neither feasible, wise, nor is it a good indicator of relative strength with China.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that both China and Russia have huge domestic arms industries producing goods at domestic prices. Furthermore, the world arms industry isn't an open market - the US doesn't compete with China or Russia directly as nations only buy from other nations they trust. The US buys domestic or buys from close allies like Belgium and Germany, who have comparable costs of production. End result? The US often pays 2-4x as much for a fighter jet than the Russian equivalent because US wages, US suppliers, and US maintainers all cost US prices, not Russian prices.

As a side note, this also irks me about the whole "arms trade" statistic and how the US is the number one exporter. Sure, by dollar amounts, we are - but our goods are magnitudes more expensive. The fact that Russia and China - producing goods at Russian and Chinese prices - are even close, should tell you who is exporting more physical quantity of goods, but I digress.

In sum, using nominal spending gives you eye popping numbers, but it tells you little about relative strength between nations. If anything, it should tell you how little Europe actually spends on defense (especially in comparison to Russian strength), and that China is a lot closer to the US than most people realize.

Waste Exists - But It's a Complicated Issue

One of the top issues everyone talks about is waste. Let me first bust one budgetary myth though: use it or lose it is not a DOD only thing. It exists in all federal agencies (e.g. NASA, NOAA, etc.) because the budget is done annually. Money not used one year isn't seen again.

It DOES NOT mean you need to spend it to get it again next year - the budget request is done annually and things change based on need and what not. Admittedly though, it does make it harder to justify getting budgeting if you don't show need, so alas, the system is very flawed. Short of a congressional change to how budgeting is done though, we're in a tough spot.

Does waste in the military exist? Absolutely. Thankfully, people are noticing and paying attention - there has been a considerable shift in mindset in the past few years towards saving money. Of course this has to be balanced: you don't want to skimp on maintenance or training, as lives are on the line when things go wrong.

In some areas, waste is also balanced by operational necessity. For instance, aircraft routinely dump fuel. In carrier aviation, we dump fuel because we have max landing limits - too heavy, and we can snap the arresting gear on the carrier or permanently damage our plane. Thus, if we arrive at the boat too heavy, the choice might be to dump thousands of pounds of fuel... or jettison even more expensive bombs. To the layman, it seems like we're burning fuel for no reason - but there's a rhyme and reason for it no matter how much it sucks. (And for the environmentalists, jet fuel is kerosene based - it's nothing like gasoline)

Inefficient Spending Often Comes from Political Sources

One of the big issues with the annual budgeting is that there is little long term continuity in a field that necessitates long term planning. For instance, the new class of aircraft carrier has been in the works for over a decade - and was planned out two decades ago. And yet, funding for it has oscillated year by year.

I'll give you an example of how political grandstanding has royally fucked military personnel and arguably cost us more money in the long run: sequestration.

During sequestration, a stop was put on training new replacement pilots for the fleet. Hundreds of replacement pilots were put on hold for a year. Well, since they just got their wings in training (costing roughly $1-2 million to train, each), you don't want to cut them from the military, but you still need to pay them.

But here's where the long term effects come in: every pilot in the Navy serves a 3 year operational tour before going back to become an instructor of some sort for 3 years. Whenever a pilot in the fleet is done with his first 3 years, a new replacement pilot comes in to take his place. Suddenly, the fleet had a shortage of pilots, and too many instructor pilots with no one to teach. And once pilots are done with their commitments, a lot get out to pursue other interests in the civilian world. Talk about a waste of human resources.

But this balloons further: a few years later, that shortage of pilots means fewer pilots available to be instructors. Fewer instructors mean fewer replacement pilots. Surely you can balance out how many pilots you bring in right? But ROTC and the Academy projects how many graduates they need from 4 years ago: suddenly, you have too many pilots-to-be and not enough instructors, and the fleet may need more pilots.

I could go into more detail, but the point is this: seemingly small disruptions have BIG ballooning effects on how the military operates.

Likewise, a lot of 'inefficiency' comes from conscious decisions to save money, believe it or not. Take for instance, the fact that much of US equipment is old. In the 90s, with the Cold War drawdown, we stopped a lot of acquisitions programs. Equipment in the military is designed to typically operate in 30 year lifecycles - the notable exceptions are things like capital ships (aircraft carriers).

However, in the 90s, a lot of early to mid Cold War stuff was up for retirement - and instead of replacing them, their lives were extended.

This does, however, have an unintended effect on Operations and Maintenance - the US now has very old equipment to maintain. Some of our equipment is from the 1950s. I'm not even exaggerating - we have over 370 KC-135's, last built in 1965(!). For a long time - particularly with the Cold War drawdown - we put off replacing old equipment, but suddenly with a resurgent China and Russia, we've stretched a lot of these airframes lives out while in the late 2000's we finally sought replacements in the form of the KC-46.

All across the board you can see this happen. The F-22 was to replace the F-15 in the 90s/2000s, but was cut short and now the F-15 has had increasing costs rise to keep an airframe from the 70s and 80s flying. The A-10 was last built in 1984 - it was due for retirement years ago, but Congressmen (like McCain) have kept it alive long past their expiration date.

I hope this all gives a little insight into how a lot of spending issues do exist in the military, but the situation is far more complicated than a simple comparison of nominal spending with other nations, and how waste and inefficiency are complex issues within themselves - sometimes by design, sometimes by outside meddling.

Now, let me explain the historical precedence of US military spending and why our spending is a conscious decision, not one haphazardly done.

The Modern History of Defense Spending

Believe it or not, in the wake of World War II, the US had a major debate over isolationism. There was a major drawdown in the military, with a lot of equipment mothballed or scrapped.

Stalin's actions in Eastern Europe and in Berlin (such as the Berline blockade) and China falling to the communists were all major areas of concern. The straw that broke the camel's back, however, was the Korean War: outright naked aggression by a communist state against another state in the post-WW2 world was just too much. The US used the newly created UN (which the USSR at the time was boycotting) to form a coalition of nations to fight North Korea. In the post-WW2 world, the UN was being tested: would it be toothless like the League of Nations, or would nations actually stand up and prevent wars of conquest?

This led to a major revitalization of the US military which as you can see saw its post-WW2 spike in spending go up to 16% of GDP in the 1950s.

The necessity of a powerful military in the post-WW2 order was predicted by many. Notably, General Marshall, in his Biennial Reports as Chief of Staff of the Army, concluded before WW2 even ended that:
  • Oceans were no longer enough to protect the US heartland
  • Future defenses necessitated a strong forward deployed presence in the world
  • Technological superiority would have to exist as post-conflict mobilization and innovation cost a lot of lives
A particularly poignant passage is when he mentions that, if not for British and Soviet lives holding the line, as well as major blunders by the enemy, the US would have suffered a lot lot more. And that, had the Axis won, interviews with Goring and other Nazi leadership showed that by 1947, the East Coast of the US would have been subject to attacks by long range Nazi weapons.

Even Ike, in his famed 'military industrial complex' speech - which gets taken out of context - actually prefaced that line with his passage:
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
Does all of that sound familiar? Because it should: the US military establishment has been purposefully designed to meet the challenges that General Marshall, Eisenhower, and other top military and political leaders have realized.

We are interested in global and full-spectrum warfare. A vital part of our defense strategy, in the world of long range missiles, supersonic jets, and precision weapons, is to put our front line of defense across those oceans. Bases in Japan, Korea, and Europe, aren't just there because our allies have hostile forces close by, but also because the further away from the US the conflict is, the more layers of defense any foe has to get through to affect the US directly.

Full spectrum isn't just a catch phrase either: the US is interested in every aspect of warfare from human intelligence to special warfare to ground warfare to air superiority to space superiority.

Whereas in the Cold War, NATO allies often focused on specializing in specific areas due to their small size and lack of funding (e.g. the UK was particularly focused on anti-submarine warfare), the US was designed to be not only the bulk of conventional forces but also charged with handling all areas that other nations lacked: logistics (e.g. the US currently has over 230 strategic airlift transports and over 430 aerial refueling tankers - the rest of NATO has about 10 strategic airlift transports and 40 tankers), submarines, bombers, etc.

Even our current aircraft carrier fleet is set to 11 ships by design. Why 11?
  • Each aircraft carrier is nuclear powered. With a 50-year lifespan, each carrier goes into drydock at the 25 year mark for its reactor's refueling
  • The refueling process is complex and lengthy, and takes 2-3 years to complete at which time the ship goes through major repairs and overhauls to stay relevant the next 25 years
  • At the end of said overhaul, another 1-2 years are put on the ship for testing and what not
  • With each carrier produced at a staggered 4-5 year interval, at any given time, one of our 11 carriers is out of service
  • One carrier is permanently forward deployed to Japan
  • Carriers are operated in 18 month cycles broken into 6 month periods. There is a six month deployment followed by six months mostly at home giving crew rest and doing minor repairs and maintenance, and six months in training for the next deployment.
  • Nine stateside carriers = 3 rotations of 3 ships rotating inside those 18 month cycles
  • Not coincidentally, we have a Pacific Ocean to care about, an Atlantic Ocean to care about, and an Indian Ocean that Congress mandates we care about. The President can truly ask "where are my carriers" any day of the year at any time.
As I said, this is by design.

But why you ask? Why is all of this necessary? Good question. Let me explain:

Your Answer to Spending is Answered in the National Security Strategy

Since Eisenhower, the US has pegged spending against the National Security Strategy of each successive presidential administration. During the Cold War, the general US strategy was: "win two major wars at any time" - largely believed to mean the USSR in Europe and China in Asia.
An archive of NSS's since Reagan is available here.

When the Cold War ended, President Clinton changed the strategy to "win hold win" - win one war, hold the line in another, then win that war when the first one concludes. The NSS also was no longer focused specifically on Russia and China. Correspondingly, the US military shrank from 3 million active + reserve to 2.1 million active + reserve. The US carrier fleet went from no fewer than 15 at any time during the Cold War to a necking down to 11 by the mid 2000's. The US anti-submarine patrol force, for instance, was cut in half overnight in the mid 90s.

In the 2000's, Bush changed it to "1-4-2-1" - protect the homeland first, deter aggression in four regions of the world simultaneously, be able to sustain combat operations in two of them, and win one of those decisively.

When Obama took office, he made a major change. First was the 'Pivot to the Pacific' - largely meant to counter China. As a result, the US refocused its efforts on buying conventional high-tech weaponry to face a resurgent and growing Chinese foe, after two decades of neglect or diverted attention under Clinton and Bush (weapons made to fight guys in pickup trucks don't do so well against actual conventional foes).

And in 2015, the NSS was amended again: this time with a refocusing on Russia after their actions in Crime and the Ukraine. Again, instead of arresting defense spending, the President actually asked for more money that year ($630 billlion) than the GOP Congress gave ($610 billion) or what the DOD requested ($580 billion).

(On that note, if you weren't sure, Ishould tell you that budgeting is made by the DOD, amended by the President, and then sent to Congress for voting in).

Lord knows what President Trump wants to do with our National Security Strategy.

As I wrote, since WW2, there has been a conscious decision to shape our military size and capabilities. We concluded after WW2 that we could not sit back and wait to build up modern equipment after aggression has happened, that we need to keep the frontlines overseas, and that we are the only Western nation demographically and economically capable of facing China and Russia.
And that's ultimately what it all comes down to: our spending can be either too much or too little based on what we as a country want to do with our strategy.

SOURCE