Tuning In to Military’s Real Needs

Running for president 40 years ago, John F. Kennedy made much of an alleged missile gap with the Soviet Union. Once in office he found that no gap existed. Richard M. Nixon, in his 1968 campaign, announced he had a “secret plan” for ending the Vietnam War. Four years later Americans were still fighting in Indochina. This year George W. Bush is arguing that the nation’s “hollowed-out” armed forces are suffering a “crisis” in readiness. That assertion too doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

There are plenty of things in the military that need fixing, but when all is said the United States can still claim the world’s strongest armed forces by far. Its defense budget is larger than those of the next dozen highest-spending countries combined. Its air and naval arms are without peers. Its ground forces are the best equipped. “Who out there is more ready than we are?” asks Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary for Defense in the Ronald Reagan administration. “What military in the world are we not ready to take on?”

But relative power, while an important gauge of preparedness, isn’t the whole story. Effectiveness means having forces that are organized, equipped and trained to meet the challenges that are most likely to arise today and in the near future, not those of the Cold War era. Effectiveness also means having coherent priorities to assure that essential weapons and other equipment are available. It means being able to recruit and retain skilled and committed personnel. These are all problem areas for the military.

Blame for that falls on the White House, Congress and a military hierarchy that has been slow to adapt to changed security imperatives. Development of lighter, more rapidly deployable ground forces lags. Dubious high-cost glamour projects suck up too many defense dollars, to the detriment of more immediate needs, including airlift and sealift capacity to move troops and equipment quickly to trouble spots.

The F-22 fighter that the Air Force has been developing since the 1980s will be the best the world has ever seen. But at $200 million a copy--about five times the cost of a new middle school--and at a time when American air superiority is unchallenged, is it the most effective use of defense dollars? Adequate air- and sealift may not have a lot of political glitz, but they are vital for responding rapidly to security threats.

Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has rightly noted the disconnection between “our budget priorities and our strategic vision.” He would increase the military budget by at least $45 billion over nine years, with 20% of that earmarked for pay raises and the rest for research and development. He also advocates skipping a generation in weapons procurement to concentrate on developing more advanced systems to be introduced years from now. There is a lot of merit in that idea, but also risk. Many of the planes, helicopters and ships acquired during the buying binge of the Reagan administration are wearing out and will need to be replaced soon.

Democratic candidate Al Gore would raise defense spending more than Bush, adding $100 billion over 10 years. Like Bush, he wants to improve the quality of life for service personnel and their families, upgrade readiness and modernize weapons. Unlike Bush, he favors expanding peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. But adding to the already high number of overseas deployments by U.S. forces threatens to further disrupt the lives of service families, sap morale and undercut retention.

The biggest difference between the candidates is over missile defense. Gore favors a limited national missile defense system, provided it can be shown to work before tens of billions of dollars are committed to deployment. Bush wants to move beyond a limited national missile defense--which already has a projected cost of $60 billion--to a much larger and far more complex system that analysts say would cost at least $100 billion. In this area Gore’s approach is far more preferable. But Bush seems to us to have a clearer sense of when American forces should be deployed abroad. He would not involve them in marginal peacekeeping operations that other nations could handle. His standard for deployment would be the need to directly protect U.S. interests.

The next president and his Defense secretary should make it a first order of business to find and promote military leaders whose strategic thinking isn’t stuck in a Cold War mold. The next president should also have the courage to support the Pentagon when it appeals to Congress to close redundant bases, which would save billions. Overall, Bush seems to be more attuned to the need for new approaches to meet changed global security demands. But his missile defense plan isn’t a new approach. It’s an enormously costly effort to resuscitate the “Star Wars” system proposed by Reagan. There are far better and more effective ways to spend the nation’s defense dollars.