Bush Vows to Boost Funds for Military : Politics: The GOP front-runner says he would put $20 billion more into high-tech arms research. He also would seek to increase pay for troops.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush called Thursday for an increase in defense spending, including a $750-a-year pay raise for troops, and accused the Clinton administration of overworking and underfunding the military services.

In the third in a series of major policy speeches, the GOP presidential front-runner said he would spend $20 billion more over the next five years for development of new high-tech weapons.

Bush also criticized the White House for sending U.S. troops on “vague, aimless and endless deployments” abroad that have divided military families, sapped morale and made it difficult for the military to recruit personnel.

Bush took a hard line on the nation’s security against ballistic missile attacks, saying he would deploy a new defense system “at the earliest possible date,” even if it meant withdrawing from and renegotiating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.

His remarks were delivered at The Citadel, the state military academy in South Carolina, before an audience of about 750 uniformed cadets and others.

Defense promises to be a major topic in the presidential race, particularly for Republicans who consider military policy a strength for their party. But Bush faces a major challenge in convincing voters that he is comfortable with foreign affairs in general, given his lack of experience in the area.

On this outing, Bush signaled how he intends to handle this challenge by relying on the advice of three senior aides from his father’s White House administration: Dick Cheney, the former Defense secretary; Condoleezza Rice, a former National Security Council official; and Richard L. Armitage, a former senior official of the Defense and State departments.

Bush stressed that he intends to increase spending for both personnel and weaponry, which he considered inadequate for today’s threats from terrorism and rogue nations.

Aides said Bush’s pay raise would be a “down payment” on better compensation for the troops and would cost the federal government $1 billion annually. Armitage told reporters that it’s “unacceptable” that thousands of military families rely on U.S. food stamps.

On new weaponry, Bush said he would spend an additional $20 billion over five years to reverse a declining investment in military research and development. The Clinton administration has requested $35 billion to fund weapon research in 2000.

Bush faulted the administration for allowing defense spending to drop to the lowest level since the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The downtrend, which began in the Bush administration as the Cold War ended, has shaved military spending by more than one-third.

Analysts said the proposals Bush outlined represent only a modest increase in defense spending, which totals about $270 billion a year. And some experts forecast that he would have a tough time coming up with a big funding hike since he has already indicated support for a cut in federal taxes.

“The big question is: How would you pay for it all?” said Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan/centrist think tank based in Washington. Even the current GOP congressional leadership has mapped a budget plan in which military spending will decline in future years, he noted.

Marc Ginsburg, a foreign affairs specialist lined up by the Democratic National Committee to respond to Bush’s proposal, called it “a very shallow effort by a very inexperienced individual.” Ginsburg, a former U.S. ambassador to Morocco, complained that Bush’s plan for new weapon systems is a “somewhat harebrained” approach that could jeopardize carefully conceived programs.

On sending troops abroad, Bush did not discuss in detail what approach he would follow. Aides said he would explore that topic in a future speech. Bush also did not single out any overseas missions for criticism.

But he bashed the Clinton administration for “open-ended deployments and unclear military missions” and promised that his administration would begin with a full review of the U.S. troop involvement in dozens of countries.

“I will work hard to find political solutions that allow an orderly and timely withdrawal from places like Kosovo and Bosnia,” he said. “We will not be permanent peacekeepers, dividing warring parties.”

The Republican candidate’s attack raised a thorny issue for his campaign as it seeks to criticize the Democratic foreign policy without raising unfavorable comparisons with his father’s record in the White House. Former President Bush, for example, instituted the no-fly zone in Iraq that remains a difficult ongoing mission for the U.S. military.

Like Clinton, Gov. Bush, who served as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, has faced questions about whether he avoided the draft.

In his speech Thursday, Bush appeared to refer indirectly to the strain in Clinton’s relations with the military, beginning with his abandoned 1993 plan to permit homosexuals to serve openly in the military.

Bush said he wanted to “renew the bond of trust between the American president and the military.”

He said he would be far quicker and more complete than Clinton in deploying a defense against ballistic missiles. Unlike the president, Bush promised rapid deployment of missile-defense systems to protect U.S. troops abroad as well as the entire nation.