Military -Budget Cold War

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger is nothing if not persistent. Shortly before Congress quit Washington for the August recess, a House-Senate conference committee agreed on an inflation-only increase in the military budget. The compromise was accepted by President Reagan, albeit reluctantly.

Yet Weinberger has the Pentagon bureaucracy gearing up for a follow-up supplemental request for the extra spending authority that was rejected in Congress’ regular authorization process. Moreover, he is renewing the push for the deployment of 100 MX missiles--double the 50-missile ceiling that key members of Congress thought the President had agreed to.

Weinberger’s never-say-die crusade for more defense money is out of sync with attempts by serious people in Congress to control the massive deficit in the federal budget--a deficit that fundamentally threatens the health of the U.S. economy. And without a healthy economy the nation cannot long afford to pay for the kind of military establishment that is required in a dangerous world.

Reagan’s refusal to accept any kind of tax increase, even a relatively painless tax on oil imports, means that deficit reduction must be accomplished entirely through restraints on spending. Under these circumstances, increasing defense spending authority during fiscal 1986 over the $302 billion approved by House-Senate conferees isn’t in the cards. In fact, given the decline of inflation, many House members will press for an even lower figure when the conference bill comes up for a vote after the recess.

Some senior officials in the Administration itself are distressed at Weinberger’s seeming determination to fight the military budget battle all over again; they are not enamored over fighting lost battles. Distressed is too mild a word for Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, who take the deficit problem more seriously than does the President, and who are out of patience with Weinberger.

Congressional GOP leaders are especially loath to refight the battle over the MX. Weinberger’s strategy apparently is to argue for the extra 50 missiles as the appropriate response to Soviet fudging on existing arms-control agreements; he may come up with still another mobile-basing scheme to make the proposition more attractive.

Even MX supporters do not believe that Congress is going to approve the extra MXs, and some have warned the Administration that the only way it has a prayer of winning a new MX battle is to trade away other weapon systems that are in fact more essential to national security.

As everybody knows, however, Weinberger is close to the President. Unfortunately for the country, if the defense secretary does insist on a counterproductive replay of the battle over the 1986 military budget, the commander-in-chief will probably back him up.