Time to Bite the Bullet--in Half : Defense: The diminished Soviet threat means that the U.S. can afford to cut military spending by 50%.

Congressional leaders looking for a logical approach to defense cuts should consider the 50% solution. The military budget can be cut in half in the coming five to six years without risking American security. Such a plan would liberate about $150 billion a year for deficit reduction and other pressing domestic needs.

Congressional commitments this year will determine how much can be saved a few years down the road. On this point, three factions have emerged.

One group, representing the Administration and championed by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, wants to minimize any reductions in the size, modernization or readiness of U.S. forces in the 1990s. They offer 2% cuts as “realistic.” Under this plan, annual military spending by the mid-1990s would be down about 10% ($30 billion) from current levels.

A second group, mainstream-to-conservative Democrats and independent-minded Republicans, wants a slightly faster pace, around 3% annually. By mid-decade, the defense budget would be about 15%, or $45 billion annually, below today’s levels. This approach is championed by Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), his counterpart in the Senate and two Republican senators, William S. Cohen of Maine and John McCain of Arizona.

A third group seeks much larger cuts--around 50% over five to 10 years. Reductions might start gradually for a year or two but then reach 10% or more annually until the 50% goal was reached. This strategy, eventually freeing up about $150 billion a year, has been promoted by leading defense-budget analyst William Kaufman and former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara.

The bottom line: McNamara is right; Aspin and Nunn will probably win, and Cheney will kick and scream.

McNamara is right because the 50% solution begins with the military forces needed in a decade of reduced threats, then works back to “what can we cut and when can we cut it?” The 2% and 3% plans, by contrast, rest largely on sheer inertia and home-district politics, working forward year by year by taking thin slices from a thick salami. Nunn worries that major cuts would be too “disruptive” of military forces. But why shouldn’t they be disruptive? Great changes usually are, and these are times of great change. Usually, when wars end, military forces are demobilized and funds redirected into the civilian economy. Such a transition disrupts the (wartime) economy but lays the foundations for sustained prosperity in peacetime.

Some threats to the United States remain, but they can be met at half today’s cost. To see this, consider where our military spending now goes. Only about one-fourth ($75 billion) supports operations in the Third World, drug interdiction and similar missions that have received growing attention since the Cold War ended. The rest--about $225 billion a year--is devoted to the Soviet threat. Of this, we spend roughly $120 billion deterring a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Such an invasion is now unthinkable, given the effective dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the Soviets’ domestic preoccupations and the new Soviet military doctrine of “reasonable sufficiency.”

The rest of our anti-Soviet spending is split between preparing for U.S.-Soviet war outside Europe and preparing for superpower nuclear war. Both contingencies are slipping into the realm of fantasy.

Some defense enthusiasts argue that, regardless of threats, more military forces give the United States more power. But “power” depends on military and economic strength. In closing the “window of vulnerability,” our government opened the budget-deficit window--and jumped. The result has been a stronger military but weaker economy, with a net loss of American power and leadership.

Only dramatic military reductions can reverse these trends. Congress must look to the military budget because, as Willie Sutton said when asked why he robbed banks, “that’s where the money is.” It doesn’t really matter whether the “peace dividend” is used for deficit reduction, social programs, or tax cuts. Any productive use of $150 billion a year will boost America’s economy.

Congress can best put the American economy back in gear by downshifting on defense. To do so, politicians must transcend “soft on defense” fears and overcome the inertia of foot-dragging Pentagon bureaucrats, defense industry PAC-men, and home-district military interests. It’s time to bite the bullet--in half.