THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 8, 1994 TAG: 9407080008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
The Clinton administration called it the ``Bottom-up Review'' (BUR), a study designed to determine the optimum size of the defense budget in the post-Cold War world. The BUR concluded that the United States had to maintain a capability to fight two ``regional wars'' on the scale of the Persian Gulf conflict simultaneously. Judging by the proposed budget numbers, however, the BUR looks merely like a fig leaf to justify ever more transfer of money from defense to domestic discretionary spending.
Even members of Congress who are normally well-disposed to the administration are concerned that the $2.95 trillion in defense spending the administration projects over the next five years won't do the job. Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, sees a need for between $20 billion and $40 billion more to ensure that the nation possesses a military equal to a two-war challenge.
Others say even that is too conservative. A Heritage Foundation study notes that the proposed budget is actually $100 billion less than that proposed by former Clinton Defense Secretary Les Aspin when he was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Heritage calculates that without substantially greater funding, to which neither the U.S. House of Representatives nor the U.S. Senate seem disposed at this point, America will lack the armed forces able to meet the possible demands upon them.
Indeed, Rear Adm. Francis Lacroix, the Joint Staff officer responsible for force planning, told Congress on March 1 that the BUR force would expose U.S. troops to a ``high element of risk'' in a ``two-war'' scenario. Instead of the 600 ship Navy the U.S. possessed in the late 1980s, for instance, the Clinton administration wants to go down to 346 ships. Instead of 194,000 active-duty Marines, there will be only 174,000.
Add to that all the non-defense-related costs the Pentagon must now bear. Up to $5.7 billion in the fiscal 1995 defense budget, for instance, is earmarked for base-closing costs, including environmental cleanup. The brass could use that money for procurement and personnel. Shifting the cleanup burden to the EPA would go a long way toward closing the $9 billion gap in the 1995 defense budget, according to Heritage.
Increased U.S. participation in peacekeeping and humanitarian activities is also cutting into the services' ability to prepare for war-fighting. The Pentagon's own outside group assessing readiness, the Defense Science Board Task Force on Readiness, has declared that the frequency and length of Marine Corps deployments are preventing Corps units from engaging in required training. Current planning also calls for the Army to lean ever more heavily on the reserves, which are by definition less ready because they are part-timers.
Wars small, medium and large are the norm on this planet. The United States should not aspire to be the world's cop, but it must be ever capable of protecting its national interests.
Matching deeds to words is essential to credibility - personal, political, governmental. Credibility is a weapon. If Washington promises or threatens that the United States will take specific action, it must be ready and able to follow through. If official policy calls for the United States to be ready to right two major wars, then the resources have to be provided. by CNB