Congress’ Idea of Defense: Hide Behind a Pork Barrel

With Congress returning from summer recess, the American people will soon have a chance to judge whether, on defense matters, the House is prepared to behave like a responsible democratic institution.

Shortly before Congress stopped work, Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, drew the obvious conclusion from the sorry performance of the House on the military budget bill. “The irrational position,” the respected Georgia Democrat remarked, “appears to be prevailing on every vote.”

The issue is not total military spending. White House and congressional leaders have agreed to a reduced defense budget of $305 billion. The problem is the way the House divvied up the money.

The meat ax was applied to the MX missile, the Midgetman mobile missile program, the B-2 Stealth bomber and the Strategic Defense Initiative.

But the House action did not free up new resources for schools, highways, medical research, housing or other domestic programs. Instead, it shifted authority from weapons programs sought by the Administration to other military projects that even the Pentagon considers unnecessary.

That might have been all right if the congressmen had been pushing an alternative strategy of providing for national defense. But they weren’t. Their motive was pure pork barrel: to provide money for military projects that would protect or create jobs in their home districts.

Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said that because of improving U.S.-Soviet relations, his colleagues no longer see a “downside risk” to voting against strategic weapons programs. More caustically, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said it was as if House members had “decided to give away their overcoats on the first sunny day in January.”

The evidence does indicate that the Kremlin, anxious to spend more on the crisis-ridden Soviet economy and less on the military, is prepared to reduce both conventional and nuclear forces. But these good intentions have not yet been nailed down in treaty form. And even if a treaty does halve the strategic nuclear weapons on each side, the Soviets will continue to have enormous military power that must be prudently, though not extravagantly, balanced on our side.

A sensible case can be made for eliminating or reducing one or another of the programs slashed by the House--but not all of them.

Few strategic planners would want to do without an effective bomber force. Because they take several hours to reach a distant target, bombers are by nature retaliatory weapons that are unsuited to “bolt-from-the-blue” surprise attacks. They are, therefore, a stabilizing element in the nuclear balance.

However, the B-2 program has become so expensive that even many bomber enthusiasts worry that we can’t afford it. Perhaps we could make do with B-1s and other, cheaper bombers armed with advanced cruise missiles with radar-evading capabilities similar to the B-2. Unfortunately, the House slashed funds for the advanced cruise missile program, too.

Then take the House’s treatment of mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. America’s silo-based ICBMs are vulnerable to surprise attack by large, more accurate Soviet missiles. If an attack seemed imminent, a U.S. President might feel impelled to launch first--a hair-trigger situation that cannot safely be tolerated.

One possible fix for the vulnerability problem would be a missile defense system, to introduce greater uncertainties into the calculations of any Soviet leader who might be tempted by the idea of a knockout blow. But a political consensus does not exist for even a limited system.

The other option is to make missiles mobile--therefore harder to find and harder to hit. The Soviets have already deployed two types of mobile ICBMs, but their U.S. counterparts are still being debated.

Taken alone, the House vote to chop the funds for putting big MX missiles on railway cars was not objectionable; the system would require too much warning time anyway. But the House also proceeded to gut the smaller, road-mobile Midgetman, which could be quickly dispersed on large military reservations.

If these decisions stand, Congress will be risking a serious deterioration in the nuclear balance. Acceptance of such a situation would be foolhardy at any time--but especially while the survival of Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policies remains in doubt.

Fortunately, the Senate--while not accepting the Administration’s nuclear modernization plan uncritically--has taken a less frivolous view of its responsibilities for national security. But if the House mood prevails in the conference committee that begins work this month, a presidential veto will surely be in order.