Reduce Armed Forces at Our Peril

Yes, makin’ mock o’uniforms that

guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’

they’re starvation cheap. .

Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy

that, an’ Tommy ‘ows

your soul?”

But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes”

when the drums begin to

roll . .

--Rudyard Kipling

Kipling voiced the animosity of soldiers toward civilians who underfund and ignore them until they are needed. The same could be said today. The Clinton administration has pushed the country down the path of profound neglect of the armed forces. The challenge for Secretary of Defense-designate William S. Cohen will be to reverse these trends and boost sagging morale.

This is about more than policy; it’s about the lives of our soldiers. The biggest losers in massive defense cuts are not Pentagon generals, defense contractors or erstwhile allies. When America has failed to adequately support the armed forces, the price of neglect was paid in the next war, often with the blood of American soldiers. How bad have things become? Since 1985, military budgets have declined 35%. Spending on research and development has been slashed 57%, procurement by a whopping 71%. Although some reduction was in order following the demise of the Soviet Union, we risk going beyond the danger point:

* The Pentagon is spending less on new weapons and equipment than at any time in the last 40 years.

* By 1999, the Navy will have only 346 ships, the lowest number since 1938 and down from nearly 600 in 1991.

* For the first time in 70 years, the Navy does not have a new-design aircraft in the development or production stage.

* Projected defense budgets will account for less than 3% of the country’s GDP in 1999, a smaller percentage than any time since 1940.

* Tank procurement has disappeared almost entirely.

* An estimated 17,000 soldiers are on welfare.

Today, defense spending consumes less than 20% of the total federal budget compared with 50% in 1962 (before Vietnam). Even in 1978, during the years of the so-called “hollow military,” defense took 23% of federal outlays. What we face today is a crisis. The General Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget Office project a shortfall of $50 billion to $100 billion during the next five years simply to maintain our current force levels.

This is a mistake we have made time and time again. The United States entered World War I ill-prepared. In 1917, Major George C. Marshall recalled the suffering by noting, “American soldiers experienced something like Valley Forge over in France in the fall of 1917. I have seen soldiers of the 1st Division without shoes and with their feet wrapped in gunny sacks marching 10 or 15 kilometers through the ice and snow. I have seen so many horses of the 1st Division drop dead on the field from starvation, that we had to terminate the movements in which they emerged.” In 1941, our ill-equipped, ill-prepared forces suffered heavy losses at Pearl Harbor, Bataan, Corregidor and Kasserine. The great arsenal of democracy did finally prevail, but not before many U.S. soldiers needlessly died.

After World War II, President Harry Truman again dramatically reduced the military budget. Five years later, when the first U.S. ground units were committed to action in Korea, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Division was routed by a better-equipped North Korean army.

The stunning victory in the Persian Gulf War has created a naive confidence that no enemy can touch us. But like the town that cuts the budget of the fire department because it douses fires so quickly, we are setting ourselves up for failure.

If we faced Saddam Hussein in a replay of Desert Storm, it would be substantially more difficult to fight and win today. The U.S. force that defeated Iraq no longer exists. The Gulf War was fought with two Marine divisions, seven active Army divisions and combat brigades of two additional divisions. Today that commitment would exhaust all of the Army’s 10 active divisions. “If we had to match the force we sent to Desert Storm,” says Lt. General Paul Funk, commanding general of the Army’s II Corps in Fort Hood, Texas, “we wouldn’t have anything left in this country.” Funk estimates that half of the Army’s 1990 combat power has disappeared. Since 1989, the Army alone has awarded 600 Purple Hearts for personnel killed or wounded in action, so we still face a world filled with military challenges. The question is not who will steer the Pentagon, but will he be in a position to ensure that our men and women enter the next war fully prepared for battle?