Defense Commitments: Is U.S. Overextended? : Senate Hearings Into Our Global Interests and Appropriate Use of Force Will Help

Almost 20 years ago Sen. J. William Fulbright, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, used to argue that the United States had made too many commitments to protect other countries without toting up the economic and political costs of carrying out those commitments.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), who became chairman of the committee just this month, is raising the same question (though from a different perspective). In hearings that will begin soon, he will take testimony from a galaxy of foreign-affairs experts on where America’s vital interests lie, and when the use of force to defend them is appropriate.

It is proper that Lugar is raising the question amid a growing debate over the massive federal budget deficit. Proposals that defense spending plans be reduced to help bring the deficit under control will be an important element of that debate.

Fulbright was the classic dove. Lugar, who supports a strong defense establishment, wants to nudge the country into making up its mind about which values and pieces of real estate are worth defending and which are not.

“Do we really have vital interests all around the globe?” he asked in a speech the other day. “Do we have the economic and military capabilities and the political will to support these interests with a safe margin of risk?”

His mention of political will is significant. As he noted, Americans seem to want a policy of containment without risks or costs. They consistently tell pollsters of their concern about forces in the world that are hostile to U.S. interests, but just as consistently display an aversion to the use of force to counter these perils.

Even if the question of political will works itself out, however, there remains the question of a mismatch between commitments and economically feasible military forces to back them up.

Lugar said that after the hearings “we will have a better idea of the military forces needed to meet our obligations and the economic resources required to sustain those commitments.”

It will not be surprising if the hearings produce evidence that the United States is in fact overcommitted. If so, common sense suggests that the commitments should be reduced, or U.S. defense forces designed and deployed with greater regard for economic limits.

At present the United States is committed by treaty to the defense of 41 countries in Western Europe, Latin America, Asia and the South Pacific; there are less formal defense arrangements with still others in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Overseas, this country maintains more than 300 defense installations and a permanent force of more than 500,000 servicemen and women, in addition to the naval task forces constantly on watch in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the Western Pacific and the Atlantic.

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger once remarked that “U.S. forces are maintained overseas directly in support of U.S. political and military interests--not as an act of charity toward our allies.” And of course that is true.

But concern that we might be overextended is being heard with growing frequency within the uniformed military itself. Gen. John Wickham, Army chief of staff, has warned that U.S. forces are being stretched thin. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have advised caution over deeper involvement in Central America, given our other overseas commitments.

Early in President Reagan’s first term, Weinberger added to such concerns by seeming to say that U.S. forces must be capable of fighting on several fronts simultaneously. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the Senate’s most respected military expert, has correctly observed that there never will be enough money to carry out that kind of open-ended global commitment.

Christopher Layne, analyst for the Army’s Arroyo Center, now part of Rand Corp., put the point well in an article for the Journal of Contemporary Studies. In his words, “No state has the resources to provide adequately for all conceivable threats to its security. Strategy exists precisely to meet the gap between available resources and foreseeable threats.”

Few military experts would quarrel with the conclusion that it would be impossible for U.S. forces to respond to simultaneous crises in Central Europe and the Persian Gulf area because key elements of the Rapid Deployment Force are also assigned to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Similarly, the Navy would be hard-pressed to undertake major Caribbean operations while continuing to perform its assignments elsewhere.

If there is a strain between commitments and available resources, it obviously will grow under pressure for cuts in military spending to help bring budget deficits under control.

Nunn, in an interview with U.S. News & World Report, emphasized the need to hold down spending by eliminating some weapons programs entirely. Stretching out procurement schedules in order to keep all programs going is self-defeating; we end up with fewer planes or warships or missiles at higher ultimate cost.

Nunn also urges that U.S. strategy (and weapons choices) be altered to take greater advantage of such Soviet weaknesses as vulnerable lines of communication and transport and lack of good access to oceans.

Clearly, however, a more hard-headed approach to the U.S. role in the Atlantic alliance is long overdue, too. Most Americans underestimate the extent to which the allies already are contributing to their own defense. But the fact remains that more than half the U.S. military budget is spent on forces either stationed in Europe or dedicated to its defense in event of crisis.

The major purpose of the 325,000-odd American troops in Europe is to make the Soviets realize that, if the unexpected ever happened and they invaded Western Europe, they would face war with the United States, too. However, it is ludicrous for Europeans to pretend that the “tripwire” would be any less credible if, say, 100,000 of the U.S. troops were withdrawn and deployed elsewhere.

Collectively, the free nations of Europe have gross national products exceeding that of the Soviet Bloc. The idea that any sizable reduction of the U.S. troop presence would drive them into a Soviet-leaning neutrality borders on the absurd.

The Lugar hearings, if adequately covered by the media, could make a major contribution toward the emergence of a new consensus on how much military strength we need, and are willing to pay for, in order to ensure an American future.