THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 22, 1995 TAG: 9503220260
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
The Clinton administration is pursuing a short-sighted approach to military readiness, three retired senior military officers charged Tuesday, by emphasizing training and equipping today's forces at the expense of the development of future weaponry.
But given the reality of limited defense budgets, all three men acknowledged, they would follow Clinton's example in ``putting people first.''
Indeed, they said the administration should further increase spending on military pay, housing and training, as well as modernization of equipment.
``We are, unquestionably, putting our future readiness at risk'' by severely cutting spending on modernization, said retired Adm. Carlisle A.H. Trost, a former chief of naval operations.
Today's frugality will create a ``bow wave'' of expense in a few years, when the services have no choice but to buy new ships, planes, tanks and other weapons, warned Trost. He was joined in the findings by retired Marine Gen. Alfred M. Gray and retired Army Gen. Robert W. RisCassi.
``We're headed for a train wreck, in my judgment, by 1998,'' Gray said.
The three men appeared before a Senate Armed Services subcommittee headed by Arizona Sen. John McCain, one of Congress' most vocal critics of the administration's stewardship of defense.
At McCain's request, they prepared and submitted a 72-page report on military readiness. It concluded that the administration has not provided enough money to permit the military to meet its stated goal of being able to fight two regional wars simultaneously, or nearly so.
The two-war scenario, the officers suggested, requires 12 Army divisions, 13 deployable aircraft carriers and 25 Air Force fighter wings. The Pentagon now envisions a force of 12 Army divisions, 11 deployable carriers and 20 Air Force fighter wings.
Gray, a former Marine commandant, said, ``We see a different kind of hollow force emerging'' from today's Pentagon, compared to the military that was tagged with the name - the poorly trained, dispirited and ill-equipped force of the late 1970s.
In that era, Gray argued, the services maintained a relatively strong commitment to developing a new generation of weapons even as they cut spending on troop training, pay and benefits. Readiness suffered, but the massive infusions of cash that came with the onset of the Reagan administration in 1981 quickly solved the military training and pay problems.
The current situation, Gray said, ``is much more dangerous.'' Because new weapons can't be developed overnight, neglecting them creates a problem that can't be solved quickly even if a future administration is willing to throw billions at it, he suggested.
Questioned by McCain, the three officers agreed that a plan by House Republicans to ``freeze'' defense spending at $270 billion annually over the next five years would not be sufficient to solve the modernization problem.
The Clinton administration has proposed defense outlays of about $260 billion for 1996. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
WHAT IS READINESS?
A buzzword in the debate over defense spending, ``readiness'' is
defined as a unit's ability to perform its assigned job and the
overall force's ability to fight and win a war. The military uses a
four-step scale, C-1 to C-4, to rate readiness. Because the
measurements are based on the subjective judgment of individual
commanders, actual differences between units can be hard to discern.
The Pentagon is trying to develop a more precise measuring system.
by CNB