Powell Warns Cuts Could ‘Break Back’ of Military : Budget: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs cautions against sharp reductions in Pentagon spending, despite the easing of East-West tensions.

The nation’s top military officer jumped into the Pentagon budget battle Friday, arguing that hasty cuts in military spending will end up “breaking the back” of America’s defense.

“If you suddenly cash in your insurance policy to buy a so-called peace dividend, you will get neither,” Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech to the National Press Club.

“As we get smaller, we also need to get better. If we do it too fast, we don’t get better--we get hollow,” he said, warning against a return to the post-Vietnam War and World War II reductions.

Powell’s blunt remarks were his first major commentary on the debate over spending for the nation’s military arsenal at a time of lessened East-West tensions. The former national security adviser now serves as the President’s top military counselor and coordinator of the nation’s military leaders.

Powell said that even though the Berlin Wall has fallen and the Warsaw Pact has nearly evaporated, he has had to place the American military in dangerous situations during his brief stint in office.

“I have been reminded again and again since becoming chairman that this is still a dangerous world and that you’d better be able to respond if someone challenges your interests,” he said, citing Panama, the Philippines, the Persian Gulf, Europe and Korea as examples.

Powell said that, despite changes in the Soviet Union, the Soviets still have the ability to destroy the United States with nuclear weapons.

“We must not confuse a decline in defense spending with a decline in the nation’s enduring defense needs to deal with the enduring realities we face,” Powell said.

The four-star general said that, although Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev remains “very much in charge,” his policies “are sowing the seed of his own weakness.”

The Soviet Union will remain a superpower well into the next century, Powell said. “So, even as we reduce (the size of the military), we must maintain our ability to deter and defend,” he said.

Powell said that Defense Secretary Dick Cheney’s plan released earlier this week to cut military forces by 25% over five years shows “we are willing to examine any reasonable proposal.”

But the general defended President Bush’s $303.3-billion military spending plan for fiscal 1991 as “a realistic, prudent response” to the changing world.

The Administration’s budget blueprint, Powell said, will begin to reduce the nation’s forces over time. “On this glide path, we will reach a base force which I believe is not prudent to go below if we wish to match enduring defense needs with enduring realities,” Powell said.

“We know we will get smaller. That is inevitable, that is the correct thing to do,” Powell said. But, if Bush’s budget request is cut back significantly, “you will force us to start breaking the back of our armed forces,” he said.

“We are looking ahead with our eyes open. We’re cutting programs. We want to close bases. We’ve frozen construction and hiring. We’re cutting troops, and, believe it or not--we’re cutting generals,” Powell said.

“What we need are not more insights on how to trim the margins, what we need is breathing space. We need to time to make the plans work.”