U.S. Troop Cut Would Save Relatively Little, Experts Say

President Bush’s surprise offer to cut 30,000 U.S. troops and associated weapons in Europe would produce relatively small budget savings, U.S. lawmakers and arms control experts said Wednesday, even though the defense of Europe has absorbed more than half of the U.S. defense budget for decades.

Bush’s proposal could save more than $1 billion per year, mostly in troop pay, experts said. To a deficit-weary Congress eager to find budget savings at the Pentagon, that would provide a welcome benefit, even in a Pentagon budget that is about $300 billion a year.

And if subsequent negotiations with the Soviet Union result in the wholesale removal of U.S. military units and weaponry from Europe, experts said savings could be reaped not only from the personnel cuts but also from the closure of military headquarters and some U.S. bases in Europe.

Administration officials, however, have cautioned that reductions more likely would leave America’s 4 2/3 divisions in Europe intact but less fully manned.

In the short term, Bush’s proposal would entail costs as well as savings. Congressional budget analysts estimated that it might cost the United States as much as $250 million to withdraw the 30,000 U.S. troops at one time.

Also, the new willingness to negotiate limits on aircraft and short-range nuclear systems could be costly if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization introduced more modern weapons to compensate for the reduced numbers.

A treaty with the Soviet Union limiting particular kinds of weapons also could require costly procedures to destroy existing weapons and to monitor each side’s compliance with the accords.

Despite the potential for only limited budgetary savings, Democrats in Congress praised Bush’s initiative as a first step.

“The President hit all the right chords with his proposals on conventional arms reductions in Europe,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.), who has urged Bush to respond aggressively to Soviet arms-control initiatives.

“We’ll have to look at the fine print to see how much money this might save the American taxpayer,” Aspin added. “If all the U.S. troops removed from Europe under his proposal are demobilized as the President has said, the savings will be substantial.”

Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) hailed Bush’s proposal as the first step in a process promising bigger savings in the future.

“This is not the summit, this is Base Camp One,” Schroeder said. “If this is seen as the end of the process and not the beginning, then everybody’s going to revolt.”

Defense Department officials cautioned that political and military motives drove Bush’s initiative.

“The proposal . . . was not offered for budgetary reasons,” Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said. “It was proposed as an incentive to encourage agreement on conventional forces reductions in Europe.”

Joshua M. Epstein, a Brookings Institution arms control expert, pointed out that the Soviet Union has proposed reducing NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe by about 25% below the levels envisioned by Bush. The President’s plan would leave NATO force levels about 10% lower than at present, although it would require much deeper cuts by the Warsaw Pact.

“In the long term, really significant savings would require the kinds of further reductions and restructuring that the Soviets have proposed,” said Epstein.

Schroeder, who has sponsored legislation calling for the unilateral removal of thousands of troops from Europe, said that future talks should try to reduce U.S. forces in Europe to a training command and a headquarters unit that could coordinate the rapid return of American troops in a crisis.

If such efforts succeed, independent analysts and Pentagon officials say, much larger budget savings loom on the horizon.

“The whole idea that you’re going to save huge bucks by taking out a division is just nonsense,” said one military officer familiar with the Bush proposal. “But if this succeeds, you’re going to save money in a much more general sense, as future defense budgets begin to respond to a smaller Soviet threat.”

At that point, the officer said, Congress and the Pentagon may safely scale back defense research and development, reduce equipment modernization and accept still smaller armies.

“These kinds of savings dwarf the idea of just taking out a few troop carriers,” the official said.