Defense Cuts Ignore Change in Realities : We can’t claim any ‘peace dividend’ while facing new and more complicated threats.

At the end of the Cold War, a consensus emerged in Washington that, with the Soviet threat removed, America could cut defense spending and enjoy a “peace dividend” in the 1990s. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that our rush to claim this peace dividend may have been premature.

Events over the past several years have shattered the illusion that the post-Cold War world will be one of increasing peace, security and stability. From the war with Iraq (and the discovery of Iraq’s advanced nuclear-weapons program) to our current nuclear showdown with North Korea, we are finding that the United States will face new and much more complicated threats to its security as we approach the dawn of the 21st Century.

Alarmingly, the debate over how to restructure our national defenses on the post-Cold War era has not kept up with this changing reality. The President’s defense budget, which the House Budget Committee voted to cut by an additional $225 million this month, recklessly slashes spending on areas of increasing importance such as conventional preparedness and strategic defense. The Administration’s critics, for the most part, are busy arguing that with the Soviet threat gone, the Clinton plan does not cut deeply enough.

Instead of debating how deeply we can cut our defenses, we should be discussing what the emerging threats to our national security will be in the new millennium, and how we must prepare to meet them. These threats are ominous indeed. Consider some of the new realities of the post-Cold War world:

* The quickening spread of high-tech “super weapons” (nuclear, chemical and biological) means that, in the not-too-distant future, small terrorist states armed with advanced weapons of increasing range and lethality will be capable of posing a direct threat to the continental United States. Until now, the only potential adversaries ever to possess this capability were the Soviet Union and China.

* Increasing access to nuclear technology means we will soon enter the age of nuclear terrorism. We should heed the words of Abul Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front, who on the eve of the Gulf War warned America: “Revenge takes 40 years; if not my son, then the son of my son will kill you. Someday we will have missiles that can reach New York.”

* As Russia’s democratic future looks increasingly uncertain, we face a very real risk that Russia’s imperialist impulse could flare anew one day--and with it the security threat posed by the former Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal.

Despite all these nuclear threats, the recently released Clinton budget reduces spending on strategic defenses by $22.9 billion--a cut of more than half. Programs designed to protect the United States from nuclear attack have been all but eliminated.

These deep cuts will seriously undermine America’s basic ability to fight and win even one conventional conflict. A secret study recently conducted by the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command warns that shortages are looming in such mundane but vital areas as fuel pumps, fuel trucks, chemical-weapons detectors, medical-evacuation helicopters, amphibious barges for landing troops and equipment, scanners for reading bar codes on ammunition shipping containers and mine-clearing equipment.

We cannot allow such deterioration. It is time to begin a dialogue over the wisdom of this defense build-down, and to consider the possibility that protecting our national interest in the post-Cold War era may require a greater, not lesser, financial commitment.

Is the United States today prepared to deal with a future Saddam Hussein armed, not with weak and inaccurate Scud missiles, but with nuclear ICBMs? Could we respond to a North Korean invasion of South Korea or a North Korean nuclear assault on Japan? Could we fight and win simultaneous conventional conflicts in Korea and, for example, Iraq? Could the Untied States even repeat its performance in Operation Desert Storm today?

These are the questions we should be focusing on--not how much savings we can get from the defense budget. Assuring our military preparedness for the national security challenges of the 21st Century cannot be done on the cheap. If we do not refocus the debate to address questions of security instead of savings, we may soon find America’s military capacity inadequate to ensure our peace and safety in the new millennium.