HARD CHOICES IN THE DEFENSE BUDGET

...Wright Patman of Banking and Currency and W. R. Poage of Agriculture...

...Compared to most of his predecessors, Schlesinger has been candid in presenting his defense budget...

...Of greater significance has been Schlesinger's abandonment of the worst of the military's worst-case analyses which always assumed that Soviet weapons would operate almost perfectly while ours would malfunction according to "Murphy's Law" (viz., peter J. ognibene is a Contributing Editor to The New Republic...

...Under this concept, the Pentagon tests a weapon in nearly operational form before deciding to mass-produce it...

...the newest eight...

...The 94th Congress altered the power equation in January when the House Democratic Caucus ousted three committee chairmen, two of whom were from Texas: Reps...

...Schlesinger, on the other hand, acknowledged in his recent posture statement that he considers "a Soviet surprise attack 'out of the blue' to be quite unlikely under the current circumstances...

...Similarly, the F-lll vote may also be read as an implicit warning to the chairmen of the two armed services committees that majorities in the House and Senate are prepared and (most important) inclined to cut the Pentagon's budget, item by item if necessary, should the committees fail to make the hard choices themselves...

...In one of the most thoughtful speeches ever given on the subject, Senator Thomas McIntyre (D, N.H...

...He speaks about the importance of foreign "perceptions" of America's commitments but does not explain, for example, how his plan to send two additional army brigades to Europe would materially affect how the Soviet Union or our allies assess our relationship to Europe...

...This momentum moves programs into the more expensive stages of the development cycle, perhaps even to procurement, with a power unrelated to the program's merits...

...Although no weapon had been killed by a floor vote in recent years, majorities in the House and Senate broke that precedent by voting to end production of the plane...

...A service, or elements within a service, develop vested interests in programs deriving from R & D beginnings...

...warned last year that we must "exercise greater selectivity in our military R & D . . . because a program once initiated becomes most difficult to stop or substantially alter...

...Schlesinger had no "apology" to offer for the budget and in fact said he hoped it would spark "a national debate...

...A new and tremendously expensive arms race might well be the result...

...yet through disuse, that power has effectively been usurped by the executive branch...

...The key to the plane's longevity was not its military merit so much as the clout of the Texas congressional delegation and, in particular, the nearly absolute power of the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep...

...What is needed now is nothing less than a thorough analysis of individual programs as well as trends in the Pentagon's budget...

...Laird had an extensive cold-war vocabulary and a bag of hard-sell tactics to push military programs on Capitol Hill...

...one of the committee's few dissident members...

...The more important question, do we need a new bomber?, has not been examined by Congress, but it must be this year because the Pentagon is including $108 million for "long-lead production" items in its nearly billion-dollar request for the B-l...

...The original planning estimate for a 241-plane fleet of B-ls was $9 billion...

...There is also a marked difference in the institutional tone of the Pentagon...

...That he is not content with the military status quo is clear...

...But if 13 divisions have been adequate to meet our military requirements, why do we now need 16...

...Budgets bespeak intentions more powerfully than words, and the willingness of the public and its representatives to spend tax dollars and borrow billions more against the credit of the United States will certainly affect how other nations perceive our foreign commitments...

...The key to any substantial cut in the defense budget, then, is a decision by Congress to assert its constitutional prerogative to determine what forces shall be at the disposal of the President as Commander-in-Chief...

...It picks up momentum with each step in the R & D cycle...

...Yet Schle-singer says his five-year projection of the defense budget assumes "a world situation essentially unchanged from today, with the Soviet Union continuing the expansion of its present military establishment while remaining at odds with the People's Republic of China...

...Conventional Forces The budget also calls for a substantial increase in conventional forces at a time when most Americans have come to realize how very limited are the uses to which those forces may be put...

...Yet in spite of what would seem to be a retrenchment, the request for "general purpose forces" has risen from $28 billion last year to $36 billion...

...We must limit our objectives, and he suggests that the United States "should be able to deal simultaneously with one major attack and one lesser contingency...

...Even if the plane performs perfectly, it would represent only a marginal improvement over the present bomber force of B-52s and FB-l11s...

...The Senate Armed Services Committee occasionally cuts a Pentagon request but usually restores it when confronted in conference by the solidly hawkish delegation from the House...

...For four years the President had requested that no more funds be spent for these Texas-built planes, and for four years Congress kept them rolling down the production line...

...These areas have traditionally been associated with the United States, and any increase in the forces required to defend them ought logically be based on some increase in the putative "threat...

...Mahon held onto his seat, but 94 votes were cast against him in the caucus largely in protest of his arbitrary control of the legislative pursestrings...

...The domestic political climate is openly hostile to the notion that the United States must police the world...

...Moreover, he explicitly noted that "the presence of both bombers and ICBMs in our forces virtually precludes the Soviet Union from destroying them both in a surprise attack...

...Patricia Schroeder (D...

...Under these circumstances, we would have the time to place virtually the entire force on ground alert...

...If the United States were to mass-produce such weapons, their cost ($20 to $30 billion) would be great, their military utility marginal and they could lead the Soviet Union to conclude that we are trying to develop the highly accurate sorts of weapons necessary for a first strike...

...He now talks about creating "selective nuclear options" but neither articulates the scenarios he has in mind nor explains what important capabilities these new weapons would have that present ones do not...

...A sensible course of action would be for the membership of the two chambers to hold their committees accountable for an in-depth inquiry into the Defense Department's rationale for its $105 billion budget...

...What that role is and the assumptions underlying it have been addressed by him in only the vaguest terms...

...The House Armed Services Committee has been little more than "the Pentagon's lobby on the Hill," to quote Rep...

...In short, he expects the threat to remain "essentially unchanged...

...it is now $21 billion and climbing...

...Tactical air forces, Schlesinger points out, "are the most expensive components of the general forces in terms of investment costs, and the cost per unit, even after adjusting for inflation, is steadily rising...

...This show of independence may have implications of far greater importance than the fate of the F-lll...

...Why not simply demobilize unnecessary forces to the extent possible and save the reduced personnel costs...

...As a practical matter, the floor of the House and Senate is not the best place to trim or eliminate individual items in the Pentagon's budget...

...For example, he preferred provocative phrases, such as "The Threats to Free World Security," for headings in his annual defense posture statement whereas Schlesinger uses less apocalyptic terms, such as "Significant Developments in Foreign Capabilities...

...Yet, it is Schlesinger himself who seems most eager to develop new, highly accurate nuclear weapons...

...Both appropriations committees, however, refused to cut funds for the plane and reported bills to the floor which left the F-lll untouched...

...Early this year President Ford asked the legislature to rescind about a billion dollars of fiscal 1975 appropriations, including $123 million for F-lll fighters which the air force had not requested but Congress had nonetheless authorized...

...The oldest of the 41 Polaris submarines is 15 years old...

...Because the American garrison in Europe resembles a string of suburban housing developments more than a military bivouac, a strong argument can be made for a smaller, combat-oriented deployment...

...This rush to production has been evident in the Pentagon's two major strategic programs: the Trident ballistic-missile submarine and B-l bomber...

...When he and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General George Brown, testify before a congressional committee, it becomes immediately apparent to even the most casual observer that the civilian head of the department is in command and the military properly subordinate...

...This rise cannot be attributed to inflation alone: it represents a deliberate decision to increase America's conventional military forces at a time when our military commitments are diminishing...

...Schlesinger believes "the United States can afford both increased social programs and an adequate posture of defense...

...In other words, Pentagon planning is predicated on the possibility of having to fight one-and-a-half wars whereas a few years ago the force structure was geared to two-and-a-half wars...

...These votes were evidence that power in the House has shifted from the committee chairmen to the Democratic Caucus and, by extension, the full House...

...When one looks closely at the defense budget, one finds there is very little substantive difference between the Laird and Schlesinger Pentagons...

...If they are right, the Trident program is five to ten years premature...

...They could no more achieve "peace with honor" in Southeast Asia than they could dissuade the OPEC nations from gouging the West with high oil prices...

...Yet in two vital areas, strategic weapons initiatives and the increase in conventional forces, he has been vague about the reasoning which led to such large investments in these programs...

...Yet a recent air force study shows that the less costly F-16 (about $7 million each) is superior to the F-15 in most performance characteristics...

...Yet these have largely been surface changes...

...The Constitution explicitly empowers Congress "to raise and support armies" and "to provide and maintain a navy...

...In spite of U.S.-Soviet agreements to limit nuclear arms, the weapons begun by Laird have been perpetuated by Schlesinger with apparently little or no examination...

...The vote to kill the F-l 11 was substantial, 230 to 164, and a clear statement that House members were no longer enthralled with Mahon's control of the money for projects back home...

...HARD CHOICES IN THE DEFENSE BUDGET PETER J. OGNIBENE Between the Laird and Schlesinger Pentagons: little substantive difference Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger has been on the job for nearly two years now and has largely succeeded in putting his stamp on the Pentagon, particularly in the way the institution deals with Congress and the public...

...The armed services committees have the expertise to answer these and many related questions raised by the trends in the Pentagon's budget...

...Because the Ford administration has not faced up to the hard choices in the defense budget, the task falls to Congress.t, the task falls to Congress...

...Nearly all the legislators' questions are directed to Schlesinger, who generally fields them without the help of a row of aides such as used to accompany former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird...

...Is a marginally better bomber worth so high a price...

...George Mahon (D...

...Unaccountably, however, he declined to appear before the Senate Budget Committee on March 14 after he had been scheduled to appear concurrently with former Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul \Varnke, a critic of administration military policies...

...Yet Schlesinger dismisses any discussion of partial troop withdrawals with remarks such as: "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different persuasion...

...In the past, it has not...

...The major contingencies that we consider for force planning purposes," says the secretary, "are attacks in Central Europe and Northeast Asia although we do not ignore such areas as the Middle East...

...The funds for research and development of a new ICBM, maneuverable warheads and air- and sea-launched cruise missiles are modest by Pentagon standards...

...Although Congress has authorized production of the first three Tridents, it would not be too late to reassess that program should the service life of the Polaris fleet be determined to be considerably greater than the 20-year figure Schlesinger has been loosely wielding...

...the congressmen know this and as a result rarely ask anything of Brown: a situation which seems to embarrass the secretary who, on occasion, has actually solicited committee members to direct questions at the silent, sitting general...

...everything that could possibly go wrong would...

...Texas), over projects great and small in the 435 congressional districts...

...Runaway majorities, should they develop in the House and Senate, would be considerably less discriminating in cutting the defense budget because the will to retrench would probably not be matched by expertise...

...There was recently an indication that Congress may now be ready to reassert this power...

...Schlesinger believes "these submarines can be operated safely and effectively through their 20th year of service and possibly longer," but some knowledgeable experts suggest 25 or 30 years a more reasonable projection...

...The B-l bomber is being built on a "fly-before-buy" basis...

...The secretary's staff informed the committee that they "objected to the format planned for the hearing," which would have been, in effect, a debate...

...Why build ten Trident submarines at a cost of $16 billion when the longevity of the Polaris fleet has yet to be determined...

...Indeed, even Schlesinger admits that "we could not hope to create and sustain the military establishment necessary to stand guard throughout this turbulent world, nor could we command the resources to defend on all fronts simultaneously...

...Congress has generally been supine to the military's desires...

...The appropriations committees generally levy a cut of three to five percent which, Pentagon officials privately concede, coincides with the percentage of padding in the budget...

...Laird would never have conceded such obvious realities for fear he might undercut his sales pitch...

...The army would increase from 13 to 16 active divisions largely by reducing support troops...

...Colo...

...what he has not done, however, is make a compelling case for enlarging American forces and indicate what objectives they could achieve that present levels of forces could not...

...Although the more blatant arguments have disappeared from official papers, when the written statements are put aside, Schlesinger is apt to worry aloud about "the illusion of American omnipotence" turning into "a perception of American impotence" or argue emotionally that the defense budget must grow "if the United States is to continue to play its historic role as the mainstay of the free world...

...Yet the cost of the B-l's development will be at least $3.3 billion just to see if it flies...

...The Pentagon wants about $6 billion this year to continue buying aircraft such as the F-14 and F-15...

...If so, several billion dollars could be saved...

...If the panels will not address them, however, the full membership of the House and Senate may...

...Such determinations, after all, require as much political as analytical judgment...

...The navy is also developing a less costly fighter...

...yet the budget calls for increases in guns as well as butter at a time when the nation cannot, apparently, afford to spend more money for both...

...A nuclear attack on the United States, even one which is limited to our strategic offensive forces, would most likely be preceded by a series of crises, and certainly by a sharp deterioration in our relations with the Soviet Union...

...but as Schlesinger pointed out in his confirmation hearings two years ago, "one has to have countervailing pressures to prevent the enthusiasms of people in development from leading into high-cost programs which serve relatively limited strategic objectives for the United States...

...Schlesinger recently presented Congress with a $105 billion budget which is $16 billion greater than last year's and, according to a Pentagon statement, "represents a conscious effort on the part of the President to reverse the erosion of DoD [Department of Defense] purchasing power...

...Because headquarters and staffs have long been overmanned to the detriment of combat units, an increase in the so-called "teeth-to-tail" ratio is overdue...

...Two trends in this budget which deserve particularly close scrutiny are strategic weapons initiatives and the substantial increase in conventional forces...

...Schlesinger usually has the answers...

...So, in several ways the Pentagon has changed for the better, and Schlesinger certainly deserves credit for it...

...Should the United States commit $7 billion to the F-14 and $11 billion to the F-15 programs when aircraft not nearly so expensive would be adequate, or even better, for tactical air missions...

...While it would not be realistic to expect most members of Congress to become intimately familiar with the details of dozens of major weapons programs, they can carefully scrutinize the principal trends in the budget and determine if they are justified...

...What has been missing from these committees, however, has been the will to make such hard decisions, and as a consequence the two panels have been little more than rubber stamps for the military...

...the air force wants 729 F-15s at $15 million each...

...Indeed, the chairman was being told, in effect, that he must now use the purse power more temperately or risk being removed when the 95th Congress convenes two years hence...

...Because Trident I missiles can be used aboard the 31 newest Polaris boats, their greater range could be utilized without the new submarine...

...That is properly the work of the armed services committees because they have the technical expertise to determine which programs should be supported and which should not...

...But does it make sense to spend $21 billion for a fleet of B-l bombers when the present force of B-52s and FB-l11s could be flying well into the next century...

...In the past the committees have done little more than compile thousands of pages of testimony...

...So, before Congress agrees to buy the numbers of F-15s and F-15s the services have asked for, it ought to determine if a less costly "high-low mix" would be adequate...

...The navy wants to increase from 334 to 390 the number of F-14s it would buy at a cost of $18 million a copy...