Defense “Scorecard” Ii: An Assessment Of The Bush Budget

Introduction

On 26 January 1990, the eve of the release of the Bush Administration’s budget submission to the Congress, the Center for Security Policy produced the first of a series of analyses of American defense priorities and the extent to which various executive and legislative branch actions support — or undercut — those priorities.

The present paper represents the second such defense "scorecard." It considers the impact of President Bush’s choices in key programmatic areas in FY1991 and over the next five years of projected reductions in defense spending measured in real terms.

The Administration proposes a sixth consecutive year of reduced U.S. defense investment. The Center believes that, at a time of growing uncertainty about future military threats and security requirements, the United States must be willing to spend at least the amount sought by President Bush, albeit with some modifications to the original budget submission.

Such uncertainty springs from, among other things, the following:

• The Soviet Union: There is growing uncertainty about the prospects of Mikhail Gorbachev and the future course of the Soviet Union. Perestroika has failed to halt the decline in the Soviet economy or significantly to reverse the disproportionally large Soviet military investment. Regional separatism and ethnic and labor unrest are likely to increase, with a growing prospect of a more aggressive Soviet leadership.

 

• Third Countries: Potentially hostile nations (notably, Cuba, Syria, Libya, and Iraq) are gaining access to new military capabilities. Such capabilities include ballistic missiles, air defenses and chemical, biological and nuclear technologies.

 

• Overseas U.S. Deployments: The United States is increasingly likely to lose access to vital overseas facilities as existing basing agreements expire or are affected by emerging arms control agreements (in Korea, the Philippines, Greece and Germany, to name a few).

 

• Arms Control: New agreements affecting strategic and conventional forces, chemical weapons, and nuclear testing, could result in changes in the size, composition, disposition and technological sophistication of U.S. forces which could render them less effective as deterrents.

 

• Defense Industrial Base: Past and anticipated defense cuts are dampening investment in associated research and development and industrial capacity, seriously compromising the U.S. technology and production base.

The attachment indicates key programs which the Center believes must be pursued and capabilities that must be retained virtually irrespective of the level of defense funding ultimately enacted by the Congress.