Danger to Jobs May Limit Amount of Defense Cuts

Despite recent strong statements, Congress may be having second thoughts about making dramatically larger reductions in military spending than President Bush has requested, congressional and private analysts said Thursday.

Although Democrats had vowed to increase whatever cuts Bush proposed, some strategists now are saying that the breadth of the President’s spending plan may preclude further reductions, at least for this year and possibly well into the future.

The problem is jobs. To cut much beyond the Bush proposal would require stopping production on still more weapons--and damaging already hard-hit defense contractors in such politically important areas as Southern California, analysts said.

“There are some people up here who believe that the Democrats had better be careful, that they’d better think twice,” one key congressional strategist said. “For example, Bush has proposed stopping at only 20 B-2 bombers. If we go to 15, that loses more jobs.”

Some private analysts agreed. John Steinbruner, a Brookings Institution defense expert, predicted that Congress ultimately will go along with most of the Bush plan, in dollar amounts and in reshaping the armed forces.

“Congress doesn’t really want to take on the Administration in a big national security debate,” Steinbruner said. “They’re going to cut a little more from the budget but it’s going to be marginal.”

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney this week dismissed the current bout of defense-cutting fever on Capitol Hill as little more than short-term political posturing.

“There will be a debate, certainly, in a campaign year that will suggest that . . . instead of cutting the number the President will announce . . . we could cut two or three times that,” Cheney told the Foreign Policy Assn. on Monday in New York. “That’s hogwash.”

Bush proposed about $50-billion worth of defense cuts over the next five years, about $7 billion of that in fiscal 1993. Among them are halting production of the B-2 bomber at 20 planes and stopping the manufacture of warheads for submarine-based ballistic missiles.

But he also warned that going beyond those reductions would be irresponsible in the face of continuing troubles around the globe. “These cuts are deep, and you must know my resolve,” he said. “This deep, and no deeper.”

The momentum in Congress is not likely to wane quickly. Although neither the House nor Senate armed-services committees has suggested specific figures yet, proposals for how much to cut the budget abound on Capitol Hill.

Before Bush proposed the cuts advocated by the Administration, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) had called for $100 billion in additional defense cuts over the next five years; Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), for $210 billion over seven years, and Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), for $120 billion over four years.

Mitchell’s plan would save $20 billion by halting the B-2 bomber, $15 billion by cutting spending for the “Star Wars” missile defense program; $45 billion by troop cuts and overall force reduction and $20 billion in savings from cuts in weapons production.

And, although the armed-services committees have not yet taken a stand on defense cuts, they already have begun major reviews of the structure of U.S. forces with a view toward reshaping them to meet new--and decidedly different--post-Cold War needs.

The increased pressure for major surgery stems largely from an election year desire by lawmakers to help finance new domestic initiatives. Cutting defense spending, they reason, will yield a multibillion-dollar “peace dividend” that can be rechanneled to meet other needs.

Many lawmakers also believe that the basic structure of U.S. armed forces is outmoded in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact alliance and in the face of an increased threat from Third World countries such as Iraq.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) warned last week that simply reducing the current force “will leave us with a smaller version of (what) we built for the Cold War. . . . There is no way of knowing whether it’s the right size or the right kind.”

He called instead for a “bottom-up” review to pinpoint national security threats the United States is most likely to face in the post-Cold War age--from countering regional aggressors to dealing with terrorism--and to reshape U.S. forces to meet them.

“A lot of members of Congress will see that as a breach of the dike,” said Gordon Adams, analyst with the Defense Budget Project, a private research group. “What the President proposes will only open the bidding.”

“Politics will take over after that,” Adams said. “Congress will be driven by the dictum, ‘How much money can we get from defense, how fast?’ ” to finance domestic spending or tax cuts. “It’ll be the First National Bank of Defense.”

But it is not clear yet precisely what any of these cuts would imply in terms of restructuring the armed forces--that is, what the Army, Navy and Air Force would look like once the changes have been put into place. Few besides Mitchell have spelled out specific cuts.

Some analysts doubt that the lawmakers will end up endorsing anywhere near the sweeping reforms that they now are advocating.

“Our military force is a very, very fragile and unique being, if you will,” Cheney said. “If we make the wrong decisions, then the next time we go to war, there will be a lot more of our people who don’t come home again when it’s over with.”

To be sure, there’s no dearth of recommendations on changes. Although Aspin has carefully avoided offering firm figures on how much should be cut, he has carefully sketched out a methodology using the force structure needed to defeat Iraq as a benchmark.

And he has cited six major threats for which America might want to use military force in the post-Cold War period: Stopping regional aggressors, such as in the Middle East, keeping the peace, aiding civilians and combatting nuclear proliferation, terrorism and drug trafficking.

Private groups such as a Brookings team that includes Steinbruner and Lawrence J. Korb, undersecretary of defense during the Ronald Reagan Administration, have outlined their own suggestions for reshaping U.S. forces to meet the post-Cold War age.

Democratic presidential candidates have weighed in as well. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton would cut $200 billion over six years. Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) would slash 30% to 40% over 10 years. And Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) would cut Pentagon spending in half over a decade.

But Adams of the Defense Budget Project, for one, doubts that Congress will end up revamping defense spending substantially, partly because of the complexity of doing so and partly because many lawmakers will yield to local political pressures against cutting key weapons systems.

“You won’t see a lot of change in dealing with force structure because Congress has a hard time dealing with force structure,” he said. He predicted that reluctance of some members to slash military procurement will “place a floor under the would-be top-line cutters.”

The two armed services panels are expected to begin work in mid-February on shaping their own proposals, which they hope will be passed by spring.

After that, the two houses will tackle their formal budget proposals and later their appropriations bills, which will decide specific amounts for each major element. Some say that the debate could remain unresolved this year, postponed to 1993 and beyond.

PRICE OF PEACE: Many Southland aerospace workers are convinced they will lose their jobs. D1