Clinton’s Defense Increases Look More Like Political ‘Triangulation’ Than A Cure For The Hollow Military

Pentagon’s Own Data Shows It Needs Roughly Ten Times More

(Washington, D.C.): On the eve of tomorrow’s appearance of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before
the
Senate Armed Services Committee,¹ President Clinton
unveiled his decision to provide a $110
billion increase in defense spending over the next six years. Unfortunately, this seeming indication
that the Administration has recognized the error of its past ways in making draconian and
dangerous cuts in the Pentagon’s budget may be but another instance of political manipulation of
the Nation’s security organizations (from the military to the intelligence community to the
Department of Justice and its law enforcement apparatus).

For one thing, the claimed $12 billion increase for Fiscal Year 2000 — the only portion of this
$100 billion that can be considered for be real (the rest is in fictional “out-years” funding) — is not
all that it is cracked up to be. For another, even if real, these funds would be hopelessly
inadequate to the task at hand, namely of restoring the Nation’s military to fighting trim.

‘Smoke and Mirrors’

An analysis in today’s Wall Street Journal entitled “Clinton Vows Big Rise in
Defense Outlays”
dissects the devious methods President Clinton has employed to claim this dramatic increase.
Although he declared in his weekly radio address on Saturday that he will ask Congress for “an
increase of over $12 billion for defense readiness and modernization,” Mr. Clinton’s projected
budget of $269 billion can only be that much larger if he cooks the books. As the Journal
put it:

“The $269 billion in proposed defense spending is actually only about $2 billion over
what Congress approved last fall for fiscal 1999. But that isn’t the relevant
comparison, White House officials say. They prefer to stack up their new proposal
against what they had proposed a year ago for fiscal 2000. At that time, the figure was
$265 billion. By that logic, that translates into $4 billion spending increase.”

What is more, the Administration achieves the remaining $ 8 billion increase by claiming
that lower-than-expected inflation has reduced the cost of programs that are already in the
pipeline. In theory, its officials contend, savings of $8 billion from previous spending is now free
to go towards new programs.

Even if one were to assume that a $12 billion increase actually were in
the offering, few of
these dollars will go towards readiness and modernization budgets as President Clinton has
claimed. A large chunk of that increase, roughly $3 billion, will actually have to go
towards
increased military pay and retirement benefits that were approved last year. This money is sorely
needed to retain high quality individuals who leave the military for higher paying jobs in the
civilian sector. The open-ended peacekeeping operation in Bosnia requires an additional $2
billion annually, leaving the services only $7 billion for increases in readiness and modernization.
Obviously if the actual amount of increase over the FY 1999 level is less than $12 billion, the
plus-up available to redress serious deficiencies allowed to metastasize during the Clinton years
will be that much smaller.

Just the Tip of the Iceberg

The truth is that an increase of $7 billion is woefully inadequate to support a force
that even
Clinton’s own Defense Department said was key to guaranteeing U.S. security. A
meticulous study, utilizing the data complied in 1997 by the Pentagon as part of its Quadrennial
Defense Review (QDR), has been conducted over the past few months by two respected defense
analysts — Dr. Dan Goure of the Center for Strategic and International Studies
and Jeffrey
Ranney of Management Support Technology, Inc. Their stunning conclusion:
The U.S. military
would need an increase of approximately $100 billion per year or more through 2010 to
meet
the Clinton QDR’s requirements.

This analysis concludes that there is a $376 billion shortfall in procurement spending
from FY
1999-2003. There are, moreover, serious shortfalls in every other category of defense
spending
as well. According to the Goure-Ranney study, to make up these shortfalls in procurement and
meet QDR levels, the procurement budget alone will need to be increased to
$160 billion
annually through FY 2010. Absent these increases, aircraft numbers will slip to below
acceptable levels and the Navy will shrink from the QDR-mandated 300 ships to well below 200.

Inadequate Resources for the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent

Another serious problem arises from the lack of planned funding for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Existing statutory requirements that American nuclear forces remain at START I levels until the
Russian Duma ratifies START II mean that the current nuclear arsenal must continue to be fully
funded. The Administration assumed, however, that START II would be ratified long before
now. As a result, it failed to program into its future budgets funding for current force levels. All
other things being equal, therefore, further pressure on any Clinton increase in defense spending
will arise from the costs of defraying the growing shortfall in funding for nuclear forces. ²

It is important to note, in addition, that these shortfalls only assume planning for a
QDR-sized
force. They do not encompass programs or activities that may prove critical to U.S.
security but
that are unprogrammed — and that will likely necessitate further increases in defense spending
(e.g., ballistic missile defense and contingency military operations).

The Bottom Line

Starting with tomorrow’s hearing, the Congress must come to grips with the reality
that the
U.S. armed forces are in the red zone. At this point, to restore the hollow military
President
Clinton has largely created will take not just “triangulation” but triage — and
ultimately vast and
sustained additional resources, superior personnel throughout the ranks and credible, effective
leadership at the top, both civilian and uniformed.

It adds insult to injury to create the false impression that the defense budget is being increased
as
long as the military continues to be denied the funding needed to carry out its
ever-more-demanding missions. The Clinton Administration must not be permitted to continue to
use the
armed forces and their resources in political machinations that further besmirch the Presidency
and, worse yet, that undermine the Nation’s ability to safeguard its vital interests around the
world.

¹It will be recalled that the last time the Chiefs testified before the
Armed Services Committee,
they were severely upbraided for belatedly disclosing the true, appalling state of the U.S.
military’s readiness, morale and future combat capability. See the Center’s Decision
Brief
entitled Wanted: An End To The ‘Hollow’ Military — And A ‘Feasible,’ ‘Practical’
Missile
Defense (No. 98-D 167, 29 September
1998).

²These funding shortfalls are just one symptom of critical problems
arising from the Clinton
administration’s “denuclearization” agenda. For more on this policy, see Third
Time’s a Charm?
Yet Another Blue-Ribbon Group Warns Against Clinton’s ‘Denuclearization’
Agenda (No.
98-D 195, 4 December 1998).