Defense Policy Disappointing, Nunn Says

The Senate Armed Services Committee, under Democratic control for the first time in the Reagan Administration, opened a comprehensive review of U.S. defense strategy Monday with its chairman questioning “the clarity, the coherence and the consistency” of present policies.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), new chairman of the key congressional panel, criticized as “disappointing and misleading” the Administration’s assessments of how U.S. military strength compares with the Soviet Union’s.

“These superficial net assessments,” he complained, “continue to be presented in isolation from the myriad of other factors that must be considered when assessing our relative capabilities.

” . . . By portraying tanks against tanks and artillery tubes against artillery tubes, these assessments suggest that our strategy is to pit strength against strength on a quantitative basis,” Nunn said.

Such assessments, he said, tend to exaggerate the Soviets’ advantages and unfairly underestimate some U.S. strides.

Soviet Threat Called Substantial

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, the only witness on the opening day of the committee’s series of hearings, testified that the continuing Soviet threat is substantial. Higher defense spending is necessary, he said, because there is “no prudent way to scale back American interests around the world.”

The Administration is seeking a $312-billion defense budget that calls for a 3% increase in spending after inflation, the smallest increase it has sought since it began a massive military buildup six years ago.

But Monday’s hearings focused on defense strategy rather than specifics of the budget. “Congress and the Pentagon are drowning in budget detail,” Nunn said, and this “trivial pursuit” has diverted too much attention “from the large challenges we face in the national security arena.”

Nunn said that America faces a serious dilemma because of “the combination of expanding commitments and limitations of resources.”

“History has clearly demonstrated that an effective strategy must be based on a calculated relationship between ends and means,” he said. “A nation whose publicly declared goals far exceeds its capabilities is in a high-risk posture.”

Weinberger said that the Administration seeks military forces strong enough to deter aggression by the Soviets and others. “Otherwise,” he said, “we have ‘hollow’ forces, leaving us with a ‘hollow’ strategy.”