The fiscal year
2001 defense budget proposal that President Clinton sent to Congress
last month "provides men and women in uniform the resources they
need," according to Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, "to
remain the world's preeminent military force. ... It also meets the
Joint Chiefs' goal of $60 billion for modernization of major weapon
systems and preserving our unparalleled technological superiority in the
future."
Of perhaps even
greater importance, Cohen pledged in his OpEd article in the 27 January
Washington Post, "We will continue to devote the resources ...
[needed] to ensure that we remain the best trained, best equipped, best
led, and most respected military in the future, one that is fully
capable of defending our national interests worldwide."
Fortunately,
those encouraging words are validated to a certain degree by a real
(i.e., adjusted for inflation) increase in defense spending requested in
the president's FY 2001 budget proposal, and by even greater increases
projected for the "outyears" of the FYDP (future-years defense
plan).
But that is not
the end of the story. For one thing, history shows that the outyear
projections in the last year of any administration--of either party--are
almost always irrelevant. The incoming administration always has the
last word on current expenditures. Perhaps the best example of this is
the fact that in 1993, as William Kristol points out in the 7 February
Weekly Standard, "the Clinton administration sliced $162 billion
from the final five-year Bush defense plan."
Even the
somewhat higher defense budgets now projected "are too low to
maintain today's military," Kristol says in his editorial. He
quotes three nonpartisan organizations to validate that assertion: (1)
The Brooking's Institution's Michael O'Hanlon "has calculated that
$27 billion per year [additional] would be necessary simply to tread
water"; (2) The Congressional Budget Office--highly praised by
President Clinton himself for its accuracy and integrity--"pegs the
gap at $37 billion [per year] or more, and is readying a comprehensive
new study likely to increase that estimate"; and (3) the Center for
Strategic and International Studies has completed an extremely detailed
analysis that concludes that the Pentagon "needs as much as $100
billion more per year."
The long-term
constraints on defense spending started more than 15 years ago, it
should be emphasized, and stem at least partially from the end of the
Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. What has made the
problem particularly acute in recent years, though, has been the changes
in national security policy that put much greater emphasis on the use of
U.S. naval and military forces for humanitarian and peacekeeping
missions. The result has been not only the highest peacetime operating
tempo for those forces in our nation's history but also major recruiting
and retention problems, the erosion and breakdown of equipment, and,
inevitably, an anecdotal but demonstrably significant--and
growing--reduction in the combat readiness of nondeployed forces. These
problems affect all of the nation's armed services, but are particularly
severe for America's sea services, which in many areas of the world are
not only the first but frequently the only combat-ready forces
immediately available to the national command authorities in times of
international crisis.
Readiness will
continue to decline if the current budget ceiling on defense is not
raised--by perhaps tens of billions of dollars. With budget surpluses of
several trillions of dollars projected for the next 1015 years this
would not seem to be an insurmountable problem. However, national
security in general falls extremely low on the various lists of
"major concerns of the American people" developed by the media
and public opinion organizations. Moreover, very few of the candidates
running for local or national office this year have any background in
national security, and fewer still have served on active duty in any of
the nation's armed services.
The challenge
facing the Navy League and other pro-defense organizations this year,
therefore--and a tremendous challenge it is--is to triple our efforts to
educate the American people, the media, the Congress, the
administration, and especially the candidates at all levels of
government to make national security a much higher priority, to
significantly increase the current defense budget ceiling, and to ensure
that our armed forces will continue to be, in Cohen's words, "fully
capable of defending our national interests worldwide."
The first and
most important duty of government is spelled out clearly in the
Constitution of the United States: "To provide for the common
defense." It is up to us--all of us--to insist that the common
defense also be the highest priority of those who seek to wear the
mantle of national leadership this year, and in the years to come.
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