Bush Proposals for Military

* Re “NATO Faces a New Threat: President Bush,” Commentary, Oct. 26: Robert E. Hunter assails George W. Bush’s foreign policy advisor, Condoleezza Rice, for voicing the obvious--that it is not prudent for the U.S. or Europe to have American elite forces providing police escort duties in the Balkans. America ought to turn routine patrolling over to European troops, so that U.S. forces can prepare and train for a host of potential challenges in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and elsewhere, Rice says.

Hunter states that U.S. involvement is already minimal, as it is American troops making up just 15% of the total number of troops in the former Yugoslavia. However, most of the critical warships stationed in Balkan waters fly the Stars and Stripes. Washington also stations over 100,000 soldiers to the U.S. military presence in Europe. U.S. aircraft did the heavy lifting in the 1999 Kosovo air campaign. Certainly these constitute positive proofs of the American commitment to NATO.

What is most worrying to NATO in the long term is not the Texas governor as president but an American public grown weary of doing for others what they should be doing for themselves.

THOMAS H. HENRIKSEN

Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

Stanford University

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Bush’s “new division of labor” for NATO (Oct. 30) is really nothing more than corporate welfare. Peacekeeping and peacemaking require more troop training, light vehicles for rapid deployment and new technologies such as the unmanned aerial vehicles that worked well in Kosovo. These high-return, lower-cost items are key to a U.S. military capable of handling 21st century threats to U.S. interests around the globe.

Such realities are not in Bush’s political interests, as he has promised most of his military budget increases to the development of big-ticket weapons that profit corporate defense contractors. If the U.S. were to handle only hypothetical big wars, however, the military could return to its Cold War shell. This would justify budget-busting expenditures.

Much of the so-called surplus is already taken up by renewing tax credits and helping to extend the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. The Bush “Fortress America” plan would leave little left for our real security needs, like a prescription drug benefit for Medicare.

SCOTT NATHANSON

Executive Director

Citizens for a Responsible Budget

Washington