THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 23, 1994 TAG: 9408230006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Top brass has repeatedly warned, and Navy families have known all along: A shrinking Navy and increasing operational requirements are causing sailors and Marines to spend too much time at sea. Not only do these deployments by fewer ships and warriors boost the families' stress; they challenge America's readiness to confront aggressors in a volatile world.
Lulled by the decline of the former Soviet Union and the rapid end to the war in Iraq, Congress has slashed defense spending so severely that the people who would be in charge of meeting any global challenge now worry aloud that the cuts may have been more in the fashion of a lumberjack than a skilled surgeon.
In recent weeks, both the Navy's new personnel chief and the retiring chief of the Atlantic Fleet, which is half the Navy, have cautioned that things are at a critical stage: Regional crises are imposing new operational requirements, and shortened turnaround times (the period ships spend in port between deployments) are wearing down both manpower and machinery.
Any doubters can ask crew members or families of the USS Inchon, which, along with three companion ships, returned to Norfolk last week after a two-month stay off Haiti. The four sailed only two weeks after spending six months in the Mediterranean.
Vice Adm. Frank L. Bowman, the Navy's new personnel chief, said the Navy ideally would limit overseas deployments to six months and turnarounds at least twice the length as deployments. While no one expects to maintain the ideal in the real world, the experience of the Inchon group helps explains why the Navy expects to fall short of this year's recruitment and re-enlistment goals, according to Forbes magazine.
Just as the reduced military manpower puts additional burdens on individuals, less equipment means more wear and tear on machinery. The leaner element of the Clinton administration's leaner-and-meaner military is being realized, but the unanswered question is whether it can live up to the standard of meaner.
There are too many real or potential trouble spots - Haiti, Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq, Korea - for the military to be stretched too thin to respond with overwhelming force in a crisis, thus quickly finishing what it starts.
Counting on repeating the experience in Iraq, in which Saddam Hussein stopped at the Kuwait border while America built up forces in Saudi Arabia, could be disastrous if the next dictator learns from Saddam's mistakes.
There is no reason to restore the military to Cold War levels. But there is an absolute obligation to see that America has the equipment and power to protect its interests and that of its allies.
That means reviewing defense spending and determining if there are ways to spend more on military manpower and equipment by trimming civilian payroll and humanitarian missions that, despite their necessity, are peripheral, at best, to the military mission.
A 330-ship Navy - including 12 aircraft carriers - and other slimmed-down military branches projected for 1999, may bring great financial savings. But too little could prove too costly should things get too hot. by CNB