CLINTON’S REVERSAL ON DEFENSE SPENDING CLEARS WAY FOR REAL, NEEDED INCREASES, REDIRECTION

(Washington, D.C.): In a classic case of seeing where
the parade was headed and racing to get in front of it,
President Clinton yesterday announced his intention to
add $25 billion to the Pentagon budget over the next six
years. In the aftermath of his party’s drubbing at the
polls last month at the hands of congressional Republican
candidates who pledged to increase defense spending, the
handwriting was clearly on the wall: Mr. Clinton — like
the last Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, before him
— is going to see Congress taking the initiative in
halting and reversing the hollowing-out of the U.S.
military arising from years of draconian cuts in Defense
Department accounts.

Unfortunately, Mr. Clinton’s new initiative appears
long on expediency-driven political posturing, and very
short on real corrective action for the U.S. military.
After all, fully $15 billion out of the $25 billion will
not be available until the year 2000. What is more, it is
largely being applied to purposes (offsetting the effects
of underestimating inflation, paying for a military
pay-raise, military housing, etc.) that will not correct
what really ails the Pentagon: (1) a serious
shortfall in investment in today’s military needed to
maintain its combat capability and (2) an even more
catastrophic failure to perform research, development and
acquisition of the materiel needed if tomorrow’s armed
forces are to survive and win future wars.

The Least He Can Do

President Clinton’s previous insistence that defense
spending remain in a free-fall began to become untenable
when the General Accounting Office determined this past
July that there was a $150 billion gap between
what the Clinton Administration said were the forces,
equipment and capabilities planned for the U.S. military
and what it was actually budgeting. Then, in the
immediate aftermath of the 1994 elections, his Secretary
of Defense, William Perry, pointedly corrected statements
made just before the election by Deputy Secretary of
Defense John Deutch, in which the latter official
dismissed concerns that the U.S. armed forces were being
reduced to the “hollow military” of the late
1970s — including absurd claims that Pentagon readiness
was actually better than it was at the start of
Desert Storm in 1991. Secretary Perry admitted, for
example, that fully three out of twelve
active duty Army divisions are rated as “C-3”
or seriously unprepared for combat. href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾

Under these circumstances, President Clinton deserves
less credit for his initiative than might otherwise be
the case. This is particularly true since the much
bally-hooed Clinton “plus-up” is largely to be
added in the “out-years” — those ever-receding
future budgets when the Pentagon is purportedly going to
be made whole for present shortfalls. According to senior
legislators, the amount to be added to the FY1996 budget
will not fully offset the cuts previously expected to be
made in defense spending, leaving the Defense Department
still facing a decline in real terms from the FY1995
levels. In other words, Mr. Clinton is not
actually proposing to increase defense spending; he is
offering to reduce somewhat the rate at which it continues
to decline.

Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors

Still, Mr. Clinton’s implicit acknowledgement that
national defense is significantly underfunded represents
an important new point of departure for the 104th
Congress’ action on the D.O.D. budget: It is no longer a
question of whether defense spending will
increase over the levels previously proposed by the
Clinton Administration; it is now simply a question of by
how much, how soon and toward what ends it will be
increased. The Center for Security Policy believes that
the following are among the considerations that argue for
much more, much sooner and for different purposes than
the Clinton Administration evidently has in mind:

• Defense spending must experience
  modest, but sustained, real growth over the next
  few years if it is to recover from the excessive
  reductions made in Pentagon budgets since
  FY1985. Neither the near-term cosmetic
  increases proposed by the Clinton Administration
  nor the “hard freeze” in defense
  spending at FY1995 levels being advocated by some
  legislators preoccupied with the budget deficit
  will provide sufficient resources to correct
  identified, yawning deficiencies in readiness,
  investment and research and development.

• Specific, high priority programs — like those
  associated with defending the United States
  against missile attack — are going to require
  additional resources. The current rates of
  procurement are at their lowest levels in 45
  years. For example, President Jimmy Carter bought
  480 tactical fighter aircraft in his last budget;
  this year the U.S. will buy only 24 new tactical
  aircraft. It will acquire no tanks or
  infantry fighting vehicles. And its submarine and
  long-range bomber production capabilities, among
  other key defense industries, are in mortal
  peril.
• Many active duty military units are being
  required to maintain operational tempos that are
  intolerable. This is creating grave hardship for
  the personnel involved and their families and
  creating morale, retention and recruitment
  problems that, if permitted to continue, will
  inevitably threaten the combat capability of the
  armed forces. Matters are only made worse by the
  fact that much of the wear-and-tear is being
  sustained in connection with various world-wide
  assignments of very questionable relevance to the
  military’s mission — or, arguably, to the
  national interest.
• Military components are, in part because of the
  physical and resource commitments associated with
  such dubious missions, increasingly unable to
  engage in realistic large-unit training
  exercises. Over time, such a lack of training
  serves further to degrade esprit de corps and
  erode combat capability.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy believes that the new
Republican majority has an obligation to take those steps
necessary to undo the hollowing-out of the U.S. military
that has occurred in recent years. In doing so, it can
now take comfort — and political advantage — from the
fact that President Clinton has now accepted, in
principle at least, that he has inadequately provided for
the national security. That fundamental reality has not
been materially altered by yesterday’s announcement. It
remains for the Congress to offer the leadership in the
defense arena that continues to elude Mr. Clinton.

– 30 –

1. For more on this extraordinary
reversal, see the Center for Security Policy’s recent
Decision Brief, entitled ‘Pentagate’: What
Did D.O.D. Know About the Readiness Crisis, And When Did
It Know It? (No.
94-D 113, 17 November 1994).