Check Is in the Mail for New World Order

Shortly after the 102nd Congress convenes Thursday, the Bush Administration will ask for a supplemental appropriation of more than $20 billion to pay the cost of Operation Desert Shield.

And that will provide Congress an opportunity to blow off steam--not so much about the cost of the Persian Gulf mission as about the American taxpayer bearing so much of that cost alone.

Recent reports by leading members of Congress show U.S. allies playing Uncle Sam for a pigeon. Japan pledged $2 billion to Desert Shield and has delivered less than $500 million. Germany pledged $1 billion and has delivered only $270 million. And Saudi Arabia, making billions on higher-priced oil, has been slow to channel that money toward paying for its own defense.

The American people are in a fury. The slow-paying allies are adding insult to injury. Desert Shield has already delayed a peace dividend that Rep. Les Aspin (D.-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has estimated could have reduced defense spending by $75 billion. Instead, defense spending will expand by at least $20 billion in 1991.

That’s why the upcoming debate will be more than routine. It will put the allies on notice that Desert Shield, whether it comes to a shooting war or not, marks a point of departure in American willingness to shoulder the global defense burden.

“It means the American people are not going to be a 911 (emergency number) for the world,” says Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense and now a fellow of the Brookings Institution.

Since World War II, the United States has defended the West like a deep-pockets Lone Ranger. And the Ranger was welcome in his day. The Allies didn’t even pay for NATO, the alliance that defended Western Europe against the Soviet Union for 45 years. “Any discussion of burden-sharing was clouded by European nations saying they paid ‘in kind’ because their quality of life was disturbed by having American soldiers quartered on their soil,” says Michael Rich, military specialist at the RAND Corp. research firm.

But now with the Soviet Union splitting apart and the prosperous nations of Western Europe coming together, the U.S. role seems dated.

The Lone Ranger gets more questions than gratitude these days. When Saddam Hussein moved through Kuwait on Aug. 2, threatening Saudi Arabia and 25% of the world’s oil, U.S. forces moved quickly to check his advance. But later, when U.S. officials asked for financial support, the allies complained that they hadn’t been consulted about the move--complaints that grew louder when President Bush sent in more troops, doubling the estimated cost of Desert Shield to roughly $30 billion and the allies’ proposed share to $9 billion. “If you want them to pay, you have to let them in on decision making,” says a military expert.

So it’s time for a change, but not to a world without police. The fact is, nations everywhere insist that an American military presence is still needed to maintain the peace.

A high official of the Japanese government, speaking privately, said recently it was essential for peace in Asia that Japan maintain its close defense relationship with the United States. Only a U.S. presence in Asia--such as the 50,000 U.S. military now stationed in Japan--could reassure China and other nations, he said.

In Europe, where 300,000 U.S. military are stationed, nobody these days is saying “Yankee go home”--not with the Soviet military flexing its muscles in Russian politics.

And in the Middle East, many nations see the need for a continuing American presence after the Iraq-Kuwait crisis has ended.

Without a doubt, U.S. forces will be stationed overseas for years to come--but in smaller numbers, Korb says. “Perhaps there will be 50,000 in Europe, roughly that number in Japan and 25,000 or so in the Middle East.”

Great, say Americans, but who’s going to pay for those forces? The incremental cost of stationing a single soldier overseas is $150,000 a year, says William Niskanen, an economic adviser in the Reagan Administration who is now chairman of Washington’s Cato Institute. So 100,000 troops overseas would cost $15 billion a year, and that’s not including such long-term costs as pensions and health benefits.

Who’s going to pay? It will have to be a cooperative effort, say global defense experts, part of what President Bush means when he talks about the New World Order.

On that score Japan at least has made a start, recently increasing its share of the cost of U.S. forces stationed in Japan to 50%, or roughly $4 billion a year. Yet that covers only half of the incremental costs. Future burden-sharing will have to be greater if cooperative defense efforts are to work.

Clearly, there is a long way to go to the New World Order. For now, what the United States is hearing from its allies is the refrain of the last 45 years: “The check is in the mail.” No wonder American taxpayers are hopping mad.