A Leaner but Still Muscular Military : Roles of U.S. and its allies must be rethought

It may be that the key political challenge facing the Clinton Administration when Congress takes up its 1994 military budget won’t be in finding support for the $8.3 billion in cuts that Defense Secretary Les Aspin proposes but in dissuading lawmakers from taking an even bigger whack at Pentagon spending.

The temptation to do just that is likely to grow as Congress is forced finally to confront an unpalatable deficit-cutting agenda that could include reducing entitlements, raising taxes and slashing or eliminating popular programs. Foreign aid will be the hardest sell. Defense spending could run a strong second.

And if it turns out that the Bush Administration underestimated military spending over the next three years by as much as $70 billion, as some think may be the case, then the defense budget almost certainly would be targeted for especially severe cuts. A panel that will try to determine the accuracy of the budget projections that Aspin inherited is due to report next month.

Congress would be right to take a more questioning look at military requests than it tended to do during much of the high-spending 1980s. But the obligation to ask hard questions also carries the responsibility to listen to the spending arguments that Aspin and his uniformed colleagues will make.

The historic strategic change of the last few years clearly demands a reorientation in American military planning and priorities. The United States remains the global superpower. It can’t get along without allies, but neither can it evade being the leader. Adequate military resources are a necessary component of that leadership.

For now there is only an outline of what Clinton’s first defense budget will propose. A major change will come in further cuts in personnel, bringing active duty armed forces down to 1.4 million from the 1.6 million that the Bush Administration had proposed. That would include keeping 100,000 troops in Europe, down from about 180,000 now. At a time when NATO allies are moving to slash their own defense spending and troop levels, can a case really be made for keeping 100,000 Americans in Europe, instead of, say, the 50,000 that are the minimum needed for the alliance’s viability?

Maybe, but the case hasn’t been made yet. Doing so demands focusing on what threats to European security could arise in coming years--and on what U.S. allies will do to help respond to those threats. The defense budget debate, in short, could become a useful vehicle for defining not just the U.S. military role in the post-Soviet world, but also, significantly, what role America’s friends are expected to play.