Defense Budget Lists Funds for Peacekeeping : Pentagon: $300-million item is a switch from the former practice of financing from individual services’ operations.

The Pentagon has begun earmarking part of the U.S. defense budget specifically for international peacekeeping, Defense Secretary Les Aspin disclosed Thursday, in a signal that the Administration plans to make such operations a permanent part of the military’s role.

Aspin said in a speech that the fiscal 1994 defense budget, which is scheduled to be announced Saturday, will contain $300 million for peacekeeping operations--a figure that he conceded might be “too modest.”

The decision is a departure from previous practice, under which all U.S. operations in support of U.N. peacekeeping efforts were financed from the operations accounts of the individual services, effectively draining funds that were intended for other purposes.

Although Aspin did not say so, the move is likely to be interpreted as a first step by the Administration toward allocating specific numbers of U.S. troops for peacekeeping efforts--a measure long advocated by proponents of such operations.

Aspin also disclosed that the budget would contain another new line item--$40 million for “counterproliferation” efforts designed to prevent countries such as Iraq from acquiring nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

And he said the Administration would seek $400 million to expand the current arms-reduction efforts of the United States and the countries that were part of the former Soviet Union. It also will revamp the Strategic Defense Initiative, known as “Star Wars.”

As expected, Aspin also confirmed that he has decided to discard the military’s traditional way of determining the nation’s defense requirements and instead will employ a “bottom-up” approach that identifies strategic threats and then gauges what would be needed to meet them.

The secretary, who frequently quarreled with the Pentagon’s methods when he was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has ordered a major new review of the military budget and the size of the armed forces, using the new approach.

But the move could place Aspin and his new team in conflict with Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has argued that the approach is “fundamentally flawed” and that “the forces and capabilities it proposes are unbalanced.”

Powell wants to trim the military more gradually to ensure that it can handle a broader range of crises.

Although the flap may seem technical, officials said it has wide implications, not only for the overall size of the military, but also for how effective a fighting force the United States will be able to maintain during the post-Cold War era.

Analysts said it also seems to typify the growing divergence in thinking between the Clinton Administration and the nation’s military leaders on an array of key defense-related issues, from roles and missions to the use of the National Guard and reserves.

Aspin is expected to propose a $263.7-billion military budget Saturday that is $11.8 billion less than what former President George Bush had proposed for fiscal 1994, which begins Oct. 1.

Calculated over five years, the spending Clinton will propose is expected to be $123 billion less than what Bush would have sought. Clinton had pledged during the campaign to cut the Bush defense budget by $60 billion, but since then has decided to slash defense spending even more.

In discussing the new budget allocation for peacekeeping operations, Aspin conceded that the $300 million earmarked for fiscal 1994 “isn’t going to be enough” in view of operations in Somalia and other regions, but he said it is a start and will be expanded in the future.

He warned that continuing to finance peacekeeping efforts from regular operating budgets would drain resources away from other needs, would impede military readiness and would raise the risk of re-creating the “hollow force” that existed during the 1970s.

On the Strategic Defense Initiative, Aspin said the Administration would ask for an extra $700 million to finance development and acquisition of theater missile defenses, such as the Patriot anti-missile missile, and would seek $1.2 billion for a ground-based national missile defense.

The broad outlines of Aspin’s new review of the nation’s military needs were contained in a confidential memorandum to Aspin from Frank G. Wisner, whom Clinton has nominated to be undersecretary of defense for policy, the third-highest-ranking job in the Pentagon.

The effort will include independent reviews of the Defense Department’s most expensive weapons systems, from “Star Wars” to tactical aircraft, attack helicopters, military satellites, submarines and space-launch systems.

In a side note, the memo spares the controversial C-17 cargo plane and V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, which Clinton has publicly supported, partly as a result of heavy political pressure. It calls for careful analysis of both but not until after this summer.