Political Science Quarterly
Issue 114, No. 1 (Spring 1999)

How to Be a Cheap Hawk: The 1999 and 2000 Defense Budgets
by Michael O’Hanlon. Washington, DC, Brookings Publications, 1998.
Reviewed by Randy Willoughby

 

This is an excellent book, first and foremost for being as trim and efficient as the Pentagon force structure it proposes. It runs only 172 pages (34 of which contain well organized tables and figures) but manages a comprehensive discussion of the defense budget, including recommended adjustments to Trident missile loads, Commanche and Raptor production runs, the U.S. Marine Corps presence on Okinawa, military pay, Navy deployment procedure, and a variety of other components of force structure and philosophy. It begins with a clear, concise argument that fiscal realities will leave the force planned by the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review significantly underfunded, then proceeds to examine force structure, acquisition, and readiness issues, systematically combining informed analysis and prescription. In the chapter on readiness, for example, the author reviews the data on operations and maintenance expenditures per active duty member of the military and explains not only how the numbers have changed but how the accounting has changed (e.g. jet engines have moved from procurement to O and M). He then proceeds to argue for a substantial reduction in the Army National Guard. Finally, the book succeeds in moving smoothly from the big picture (proposing a Desert Storm plus Desert Shield plus Bosnia force capability to replace the current two regional war force) to the details (arguing for significant and rapid expansion of military day care, for example.)

The title may be a bit awkward (partly because it recalls the campaign of the military reformers of the Reagan build up years, when the defense budget was expanding by double digit percentages). But it does convey the authors quest for a kind of middle ground. On doctrine, for example, the author downplays the revolution in military affairs by characterising it as an ongoing evolution, but elsewhere emphasizes the potency of modern airpower (more than even the Pentagon currently does), ultimately settling on an acquisition recommendation of “rapid incrementalism.” But the middle ground is presumably a no man’s land, and one can easily imagine that the author’s thoughtful and cross cutting recommendations perturb virtually every constituency in the defense realm. The Marines will undoubtedly be troubled by his proposed cut of 13,000 personnel, the Navy will be outraged by his proposal of only 8 carrier battle groups, the Air Force will object to his preference for Tomahawks over more B2’s, the new disarmament lobby will be upset that nuclear weapons remain prominent, arms controllers will be irked by his conditional support for national missile defenses, and the NATO European allies will hardly embrace his instruction to increase spending by 50 billion dollars over the next 5 to 7 years for a genuine power projection capability.

The book has its imperfections to be sure; one of the charts (3-1) confuses the reader with a column that simultaneously states “suggested alternative” and “suggested cuts” (the second should be ignored) and goes on to give the number nine for Trident subs when the text gives the number ten. But these are tiny glitches. A more substantial difficulty with the book is that its argumentation is so often based on unreassuring rules of thumb (e.g. force to space ratios) and probabilities (the chemical threat in Korea is “significant ... but unlikely to be the determining factor” p. 68 ). The author regularly includes insurance margins in his recommended force levels, but the discussion consistently seems to assume a minimum of friction and fog of war. Contrary to the muddy picture of the Gulf War that has emerged from recent books like The Generals’ War, by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, O’Hanlon extrapolates the data on the Gulf War to show that “500 US attack aircraft could probably destroy 1000 moving enemy vehicles per 24 hour period.(p. 56)” On a more political level, military planners might legitimately discount the author’s generalization that “in true emergencies, most allies will in the end come through (p. 81) .” Consider Suez. Indeed, in his discussion discounting the possibility of simultaneous regional wars, the author refers to theorist Geoffrey Blainey to emphasize the difference between crisis and war, but the same theorist has also highlighted the pattern of fishermen casting their nets while waterbirds fight (e.g. Budapest during Suez.) In so many ways — providing information, offering thoughtful prescriptions, and generating controversy — this is a lot of book for the buck.

Randy Willoughby
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of San Diego