Downsizing of Armed Services Raises Concerns

The nation’s military, under orders from the President and Congress, has been steadily reducing the number of men and women on active duty.

So far, the task has been accomplished for the most part without forcing veteran service members to leave. Instead, the Pentagon has relied largely on reducing the number of recruits and on “incentives”--buyout programs similar to those offered by private firms that provide lump-sum payments or variable annuities to early retirees.

Officials estimate that about 99,000 servicemen and women will have taken advantage of these benefits during the three-year period ending in 1994. A separate program, allowing military personnel to leave early with reduced retirement benefits, will affect 13,068 more.

Despite the military’s claims to the contrary, however, a new study by the General Accounting Office contends that the downsizing has not gone entirely smoothly.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, notes, for example, that the pace of the cutbacks sometimes has outstripped proposed changes in the force structure, leaving some units uncomfortably undermanned and others mismatched.

And the GAO warns that speeding the cutbacks further might force the military to resort to layoffs, which would be politically unpalatable.

There also are concerns that the decision to hold down the number of new recruits might leave the remaining force top-heavy with personnel in higher pay grades, making it more costly to operate.

The cutbacks have been sizable, by any measure. From its peak of 2.174 million in late 1987, the military has shrunk to just over 1.726 million--a 21% reduction. By next year, the total will dip to 1.62 million--with the bulk of the cuts in the Army and Air Force.

About a third of the cuts have come from layoffs or early retirement programs. Most have resulted from normal attrition, and from holding down the number of new recruits--to just over 200,000 now, compared to 316,000 new entrants a year in 1987.

By contrast, with a few exceptions, the number of discharges has remained about the same--at between 300,000 and 330,000 each year, according to figures compiled by the individual services.

The one aberration in discharges occurred during the Persian Gulf War, when, because of the need for veterans, the services postponed many retirements scheduled for 1991 until 1992--skewing the figures for both years. The numbers are expected to return to normal in 1993.

Edwin Dorn, assistant defense secretary for personnel and readiness, cites the trends as evidence that the force reduction is being well-handled.

Martin Binkin, a Brookings Institution military manpower expert, agrees. “They’ve managed the situation pretty well,” Binkin said. “They’ve been pretty successful at minimizing the impact of the downsizing.”

Even so, Defense Department officials concede that the widespread perception is that the military is jettisoning career personnel and isn’t taking in many new members, is hurting recruiting--and morale.

“A lot of teen-agers seem to think that the military isn’t accepting any new people at all, and that just isn’t true,” the Pentagon’s Dorn laments.

And Binkin asserts there is “a lot of concern among the troops” that career prospects in the military may be dimming, despite what the aggregate figures seem to show. “People are uneasy,” he says.

How It’s Shrinking

The armed forces are being cut mainly by thinning recruitment.

TROOP STRENGTH

NEW PERSONNEL 1987: 316,800 1988: 286,700 1989: 293,900 1990: 232,300 1991: 206,600 1992: 202,800 1993*: 203,000 DISCHARGED PERSONNEL 1987: 308,247 1988: 327,969 1989: 299,361 1990: 308,301 1991: 255,559 1992: 356,005 1993*: 280,000 * Projections

Source: Department of Defense