World Policy Journal
Volume XVI, No 1, Spring 1999

Ready For What? The New Politics of Pentagon Spending
By William D. Hartung

 

President Clinton’s plan to increase Pentagon spending by $112 billion over the next six years has more to do with domestic budget politics than it does with global geopolitics. There is no threat to U.S. interests that can possibly justify the largest increase in the Pentagon budget since the Reagan era. Current U.S. arms spending of $276 billion per year is already more than twice as much as the combined military budgets of every conceivable U.S. adversary, including Russia, China, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria, and Cuba. Furthermore, the United States and its closest allies—in NATO, South Korea, and Japan—now account for nearly two-thirds of world military expenditures, a higher proportion of global arms budgets than obtained even at the height of the Reagan buildup. ₁

The main problems facing U.S. forces have to do with misguided priorities, not inadequate funding. Spending tens of billions of dollars on new fighter planes, attack submarines, and Star Wars missile defenses will have little impact on the main threats to U.S. interests: terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and the escalation of ethnic conflicts. And continuing to design U.S. forces to fight two large (but hypothetical) regional conflicts simultaneously will drain resources from preparing for peacekeeping missions, which U.S. forces are facing with increasing frequency. These new missions have caused stress on personnel and wear-and-tear on equipment, but these problems should be dealt with by re-allocating funds within the Pentagon budget, not by seeking a multibillion-dollar increase.

The real readiness crisis in our armed forces is at the top, where our commander in chief, the Pentagon, and the congressional leadership have all failed to wean themselves from the outmoded strategies of the Cold War and come up with a more intelligent, forward-looking blueprint for defending U.S. interests.

 

Ready to Spend

The real reasons for the proposed Clinton/Gore military buildup are political and economic, not military. The pending Pentagon feeding frenzy is firmly grounded on the twin pillars of pork-barrel politics and political positioning.

Last spring, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that the military budget would remain steady at about $270 billion per year through 2002, as called for in the 1997 balanced budget agreement between the White House and the congressional leadership. But the assumption of a constrained defense budget changed dramatically in the fall of 1998, when key Republicans in Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that a president facing impeachment charges was ripe to be roughed up on the issue of military spending. Given his history of yielding to the top military brass on major personnel and spending issues, Clinton was an easy target.

The Joint Chiefs fired the opening salvo in mid-September, when they invited Clinton to Fort Lesley J. McNair for a “closed-door” briefing at which they read him their wish lists on everything from military pay and weapons procurement to fresh paint jobs for neglected military bases. The details were promptly leaked to the press by a “senior defense official,” complete with an anti-Clinton spin that was summarized by Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times as follows: “It has not escaped notice in the Pentagon that the accusations against Mr. Clinton—having a sexual relationship with a subordinate and lying about it—would end the career of any officer, including each of the men who sat around the table with Mr. Clinton this afternoon.” ₂ The implication was that if the president agreed to throw more money at the Pentagon, all would be forgiven.

Clinton got the message. A week later, the president sent Secretary of Defense William Cohen a letter in which he signaled his willingness to seek a military spending increase and pledged that “the men and women of our armed forces will have the resources they need to do their jobs.” ₃

There was one small problem with the president’s promise. As noted, under the balanced-budget accord, Pentagon spending was supposed to be capped at $270 billion per year. The only options for spending more would be to break the balanced-budget agreement, slash domestic programs, or find some budgetary sleight of hand that would allow the president to avoid making these politically painful trade-offs. In the short term, Clinton chose smoke and mirrors, in the form of a $1.1 billion emergency increase for military readiness that he sought as a last minute add-on to the FY 1999 budget.

The vehicle for providing the president’s infusion of funds to the Pentagon was the catchall budget bill that the White House and Capitol Hill cobbled together in mid-October 1998. But in the inevitable horse trading that was needed to close the deal, Congress transformed Clinton’s modest readiness increase into a “$9 billion grab bag of pet projects,” including an extra $1 billion for Star Wars missile defense systems, $2 billion for intelligence operations (including money for Newt Gingrich’s half-baked plan to arm Iraqi opposition groups), and more than $900 million for the military and the Coast Guard to pursue their ill-conceived “war on drugs.” ₄ The final budget also included at least $5 billion in what Republican senator John McCain has described as the “worst pork” in recent memory, including over $400 million for unrequested C-130 transport planes (to be built just outside of Newt Gingrich’s Georgia district) and a down payment on a $1.5 billion helicopter carrier for the Marine Corps to be built in Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi. ₅

This year-end bonanza for the Pentagon was matched by a comparable investment on the domestic side of the budget, including a seed fund designed to stimulate the hiring of 100,000 new teachers nationwide. The package offered something for everyone: military hawks could point to billions in new funds for the Pentagon, while liberals could take pride in the new funding for education. Fiscal conservatives and other critics of excessive military spending were completely outflanked. ₆

The antics of October offered a preview of the main event in January, when Clinton announced his six-year, $112 billion increase in Pentagon spending. Senate Republicans promptly upped the ante by calling in the Joint Chiefs to grill them on how on earth they could do without the full $150 billion, six-year increase contained in the wish lists they had presented to the president and Congress last year. So, quicker than you can say “budget surplus,” the Washington debate has shifted from how to carry out the Pentagon’s ambitious objectives within current spending levels to how much to increase military spending. ₇

As Business Week defense correspondent Stan Crock noted in a recent commentary, even if Clinton’s new Pentagon budget does not hold together as a plan for defending the nation, it may still have one obvious political side benefit: insulating Democratic frontrunner Al Gore from Republican charges that he is “soft on defense” in the run-up to the year 2000 presidential elections. Helle Bering, the editorial page editor of the conservative Washington Times, has also pointed to the domestic political roots of the president’s Pentagon package, complaining that “Mr. Clinton has appropriated yet another set of Republican issues.” ₈

 

Is There a Readiness Crisis?

Is there a readiness crisis in the U.S. military? The short answer is no: U.S. troops are far better prepared and far better armed than any adversary they are likely to face in the next decade or more, irrespective of whether the Pentagon builds any of the expensive new weapons systems it has in the pipeline.

The weapons that won the Gulf War are still more than adequate to meet the ongoing threat of conventional conflicts with so-called rogue states like Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. As Harvey Sapolsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has amply documented, the army, navy, and air force already have more top-of-the-line tanks, combat ships, and fighter planes than they know what to do with. In fact, leaving aside the current U.S. Air Force, the largest and most capable air force in the world is sitting in mothballs at the U.S. government’s “boneyard” at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona in the form of fighter jets, transport aircraft, and attack aircraft that have been prematurely retired to make room for the new improved models that the Pentagon buys every year. ₉

The only significant readiness problem looming on the horizon has do to with retaining skilled personnel. There are “push” and “pull” factors now operating that could eventually combine to undercut the recruitment goals of the military services. On the “pull” side of the equation, a robust civilian economy is luring pilots, computer specialists, and other trained people out of the armed forces and into the civilian economy. And on the “push” side, punishing deployment schedules for peacekeeping and enforcement missions in Iraq and Bosnia are taking a toll on service people and their families. But “putting people first,” as Secretary of Defense Cohen has described it, goes beyond increasing pay and benefits (although no one is going to turn down a raise). The key to retaining a skilled force is finding ways to prioritize missions, share combat burdens more fairly (both with allies and among the various units within the U.S. armed forces), and provide adequate compensation and down time to make military careers more attractive and rewarding. ₁₀

It should be emphasized that despite all of the sound and fury about “helping the troops,” the largest increases in Clinton’s six-year plan will not go to soldiers, sailors, and pilots, but to Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin—”the nation’s “Big Three” weapons makers. Military pay and benefits are slated to go up by 22 percent between now and 2005, but spending on big-ticket weapons will grow at more than twice that rate, 53 percent in all. In the battle that is known inside the Pentagon as “the boys versus the toys” (troops versus weapons purchases), the toys are still way out in front. ₁₁

As William Greider has argued in his new book, Fortress America, the Pentagon’s readiness woes are rooted in its inability to adapt to a new era: “The military is committed to maintaining a gigantic scale and structure inherited from the Cold War, but with reduced resources for the workaday tasks of training people and maintaining an active state of readiness.” ₁₂ Until the Pentagon is willing to rethink its Cold War strategy and reduce its dependence on the high-priced, gold-plated weapons systems of that era, there will be a chronic mismatch between the resources available for defense and the short-term needs of the men and women charged with making the military work.

 

The Third Way: Downsizing the Pentagon

President Clinton and his British counterpart Tony Blair have been assiduously trying to popularize the notion of the “third way,” a governing philosophy that seeks to find a middle course between the inefficiencies of the welfare state and the inequities of unbridled capitalism. If there was ever an institution that was in urgent need of the new methods implied by this philosophy, the Pentagon is it. Given its five-year plans, massive cost overruns, and rigid devotion to outmoded ideological concepts, the Pentagon runs a close second to the Kremlin as the quintessential Cold War bureaucracy. Before the taxpaying public is asked to give tens of billions of dollars in additional resources to this floundering behemoth, the Clinton/Gore administration should undertake a serious effort to redefine its mission and renovate its management practices.

 

The Challenge for Gore

This is a job for Vice President Al Gore. He has tried to make a name for himself promoting a series of initiatives on “reinventing government,” so cutting waste at the Pentagon should be a natural assignment. And unlike President Clinton, he served in Vietnam and had significant experience on national security issues before arriving at the White House, so one hopes he will not be quite as timid about taking on the Pentagon bureaucracy.

If Gore rises to the challenge, there will be plenty of work to do. A recent General Accounting Office report suggests rather tactfully that “many of DOD’s programs are still vulnerable to waste, abuse, and mismanagement.” A summary in Defense Week noted that among the report’s most jarring findings were the following: “auditors could not match about $22 billion in signed checks with corresponding obligations; $9 billion in known military materials and supplies were unaccounted for; and contractors received $19 million in overpayments.” As a result, “the Pentagon doesn’t know what it can send to troops, can’t avoid buying more of something that the military already owns, and can’t tell how much its programs actually cost.” ₁₃

In addition to better accounting, the military-industrial-congressional complex needs greater accountability. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has joined hands with Minority Leader Tom Daschle to block additional rounds of military base closings under the Base Realignment and Closure process, which has been moderately successful in getting facilities closed down by forcing Congress to vote up or down on a list of unneeded bases drawn up by a nonpartisan commission. Secretary of Defense Cohen has suggested that additional rounds of base closings could save $2 to $3 billion per year.

On the weapons side of the military budget, some senior leaders of Congress need to join Sen. John McCain in his crusade against congressional add-ons that are not requested by the military services. Since the Republicans took control in 1994, Congress has added a cool $30 billion to the Pentagon budget beyond what the department has requested, often for items like C-130 transport planes that are being purchased almost solely to maintain jobs in and around the districts of key members. Cutting unrequested weapons and unneeded bases could fund President Clinton’s proposed pay and pension increases for military personnel without adding a dime to the Pentagon budget. ₁₄

Beyond instituting better management practices and cutting back on politically driven pork, the military services also desperately need a clarification of their mission. Despite two major reviews in this decade, there has been no significant change in the U.S. military’s strategic goals. Official policy still calls for U.S. forces to be in a position to fight two major regional conflicts (one in the Middle East and one in Asia) nearly simultaneously. Furthermore, the two-war strategy as currently understood involves spending tens of billions of dollars on such gold-plated weapons platforms as heavy battle tanks, aircraft carriers, and sophisticated combat aircraft, which have little relevance to peacekeeping, or fighting terrorism, or combating next-generation adversaries who may rely on mobile forces and cruise missiles to counter U.S. superiority in more traditional combat systems.

A more prudent approach to defense would begin by abandoning the two-war strategy—which maverick Pentagon analyst Franklin Spinney has described as nothing more than “a marketing device for a high Pentagon budget”—and replacing it with a strategy based on one major regional conflict, plus peacekeeping. This would allow for additional force reductions. It would also imply a change in the mix of weaponry purchased by the Pentagon and the military services to focus more on lighter, more mobile systems.

A more realistic strategy should also include a moratorium on the purchase of new big-ticket items—such as the F-18 and F-22 fighter aircraft, the new attack submarine, and additional aircraft carriers.” This will free up $10 to $20 billion per year in procurement funds, a small fraction of which can be utilized to replace systems currently in use as needed. An additional increment of a few billion dollars per year should be reserved for research on novel systems that might, for example, provide cheaper ways to get cruise missiles to zones of conflict than sending a costly and cumbersome aircraft carrier task force. ₁₅

Progress on any one of these fronts—improving military management, imposing more responsible congressional oversight, or implementing a more realistic strategy would eliminate the need for the president’s proposed military budget increase. Moving on all three at once could set the stage for substantial cuts. But getting from here to there will require Congress and the White House to put the Pentagon on a real budget that involves making hard choices among competing priorities. Otherwise, the Pentagon will lumber into the next century with a strategy deficit, a management deficit, and a chronic mismatch between existing commitments and available funds.

 

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Endnotes

Note 1: On the share of global military spending accounted for by the United States and its allies, see William D. Hartung, “The Military Industrial Complex Revisited: How Weapons Makers Are Shaping U.S. Foreign and Military Policies,” Foreign Policy in Focus (Silver City, N.M.: Interhemispheric Resource Center and Washington, D.C.: Institute for Policy Studies, 1998), pp. 2-4.  Back.

Note 2: Steven Lee Myers, “Military Leaders Make Case to Clinton for More Money,” New York Times, September 16, 1998.  Back.

Note 3: Steven Lee Myers, “Clinton Is Seeking More Money for Military Readiness,” New York Times, September 23, 1998.  Back.

Note 4: John Isaacs, “Pentagon Readiness Problems: The Little Engine That Could,” (Washington, D.C.: Council for a Livable World, 1998).  Back.

Note 5: Rick Maze, “McCain Blasts Congressional Funding Priorities,” Defense News, October 12?18, 1998; Eric Schmitt, “Lott Pushes New Warship for Home-State Contract,” New York Times, June 23, 1998; and William Greider, “And the Winner Is...The Pentagon,” Rolling Stone, December 10, 1998.  Back.

Note 6: Katharine Q. Seelye, “Budget Deal Is Larded with the Usual Pork,” International Herald Tribune, October 22, 1998; and Tim Weiner, “$9 Billion to Pentagon, With Missile Defense,” New York Times, October 16, 1998.  Back.

Note 7: Jacob Schlesinger and Thomas E. Ricks, “Clinton Vows Big Rise in Defense Spending,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 1999; and Thomas E. Ricks, “Chiefs Say Defense Needs Bigger Rise than Clinton Plans,” Wall Street Journal, January 6, 1999.  Back.

Note 8: Stan Crock, “On Defense, A Bad Way to Bolster It,” Washington Post, January 24, 1999; and Helle Bering, “The President’s New Armor,” Washington Times, January 27, 1999.  Back.

Note 9: Harvey M. Sapolsky and Eugene Gholz, “Private Arsenals: America’s Post-Cold War Burden,” in Arming the Future: A Defense Industry for the 21st Century, ed. Ann Markusen and Sean Costigan (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, forthcoming); and William Greider, “Fortress America,” Rolling Stone, July 10-24, 1997.  Back.

Note 10: On “putting people first,” see “DOD News Briefing: FY 2000 Budget Briefing,” February 1, 1999, at www.defenselink.mil/ new/Feb199/to2011999_tbudgetbrf.html.  Back.

Note 11: Rates of increase for procurement versus personnel were calculated by the author, drawing on data from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), “Department of Defense Budget for FY 2000,? press release, February 1, 1999; on the “boys versus toys” phrase, see Patrick Sloyan, “Clinton’s $261 Billion Defense Plan,” Newsday, February 2, 1999.  Back.

Note 12: William Greider, Fortress America: The American Military and the Consequences of Peace (New York: Public Affairs Press, 1998), p. x.  Back.

Note 13: David Abel, “GAO Slams Pentagon ‘Fraud, Waste, Abuse,’” Defense Week, February 1, 1999.  Back.

Note 14: See Jim Garamone, “Cohen Asks America to Support Military Base Closures,” Armed Forces Press Service, January 29, 1999.  Back.

Note 15: For the costs of new weapons systems being purchased by the Pentagon, see John Isaacs, “Fiscal Year 2000 Military Budget at a Glance,” (Washington, D.C.: Council for a Livable World Education Fund, 1999); and Chris Hellman, “Fiscal Year 2000 Request for Selected Weapons,” (Washington, D.C.: Center for Defense Information, 1999).  Back.