PEACE DIVIDEND SAVE FOR STORMS AHEAD : Don’t Use a Sledgehammer on Our Defense Forces : The Soviet economy will rebound and its military- industrial complex will flourish.

In a preemptive move, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney announced a “streamlining” of the U.S. military, theoretically to save $39 billion. He had previously ordered the defense Establishment to reduce spending by $180 billion over a three-year period. Now President Bush is planning troop cutbacks. These are opening plays in a football game between the Administration and Congress--a game designed to take advantage of the temporary aberration caused by the greatest geopolitical reorganization since World War II. But the players are not focusing on certain vectors that will eventually converge and how to handle them.

From 1946 to 1956, Japan and Germany rebuilt their states with the help of countries that were instruments of their defeat. In that period, the world saw these nations rebound and become stable. Then, between 1957 and 1970, they became serious competitors in the world marketplace. After 1971, they became superpowers.

Today we see an analogous situation: The West is starting to rebuild the Soviet Union and the East Bloc. But it will not take the Soviets as long to recover. The Soviets’ natural resources, technological advances and taste for a better life will make their rebound possible, amazing even their most cynical detractors.

The only major difference today from 40 years ago is that both the Japanese and German military-industrial complexes were destroyed and then restricted. But the military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union will still be intact, commanding about one-quarter of gross national product. Keeping in mind that President Mikhail S. Gorbachev may not have real control over his military, much less be able to retain power, one can safely assume that the Soviet military institution will promote its own agenda. Careful moves will enable it to survive an initial contraction and flourish as the economic transformation occurs, thanks to Western investment. Mutant forces--in Cuba, Vietnam, Angola and other areas--will emulate this model, generating their own turmoil. This will contribute to conflict aimed at the Free World for decades to come.

The expanding world population, with its depletion of our environment and resources, is another vector generating conflict. The population of our planet is 5.3 billion and growing exponentially. This crowding will replicate the psychology experiment demonstrating how two mice in a grocery box with an ounce of cheese are friendly, 20 under the same conditions are feisty and 200 murderous. The competition for markets, resources and trade routes will in itself generate turmoil.

Furthermore, the idea that war will become obsolete, as predicted by the authors of “Megatrends 2000,” especially when the drug and terrorism vectors are considered, is unfortunately ridiculous. The notion that the level of intensity will decrease is pure fantasy, because the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is on the increase.

As the world reels under an average of 30 wars a year, our leaders are auctioning off our constitutionally mandated defense Establishment for a “peace dividend” that is shortsighted compared to the consequences. The remaining hollow shell, if not directed toward these specific, expanding threats, will eventually prove as rigid as the French military was in the late ‘30s.

Our President and military leaders, when cutting defense spending, should not be tempted to use a sledgehammer when they can use a scalpel. Accordingly, there must be selective use of Special Operation Forces to keep violence at its lowest level. Conventional brute force will be too expensive in terms of manpower, political risk and resources for the increasing and frequent small conflicts around the world. It should be saved and used only when appropriate, with Congress supporting this concept.

Cheney must not focus on a cheaper version of the same old military with the same antiquated insights. He has to reorient and redesign our defense Establishment to meet these multidimensional threats with the resources to do the job of protecting America.