Put Your Money Where Your War Is
DONNELLY, TOM & SCHMITT, GARY
Put Your Money Where Your War Is The underfunded Bush Doctrine. BY GARY SCHMITT AND TOM DONNELLY PRESIDENT BUSH has made plain from the start that the war on terrorism will be long and large....
...One result is that all the services contemplate reducing their participation in the multi-service Joint Strike Fighter program...
...Finally, providing air support in bad weather or at night is still an imperfect science...
...But its outright cancellation is probably not in the cards...
...Though the president touts his 2003 defense budget request, it will do little more than fund the Clinton program...
...Since September 11, the United states has routed the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, committed thousands of troops to assist in the fight against terror groups in the Philippines, Georgia, and elsewhere, and stationed aircraft in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Bulgaria...
...The Navy also needs to build new variants of the F/A-18 for missions it now meets with creaking Vietnam-era EA-6B planes...
...in case the Saudis won't cooperate, alternate airfields and command centers are being readied in Turkey and the Gulf emirates...
...troops and keep them there...
...Struggling with a shortage of carrier aircraft, the Navy prefers a bird in the hand, the upgraded F/A-18 now in production, to two in the bush in the form of the JSF, whose production is probably a decade away...
...Any campaign in Iraq will pose similar challenges...
...In sum, the JSF is everyone's second priority within the military...
...The editorial pages of the New York Times notwithstanding, the "revolution in military affairs" is no cheap fix...
...the Crusader may be just the first of the larger programs to go...
...Those folks signed up to defend the homeland and help out in national emergencies...
...This is consistent with the administration's narrow view of military requirements prior to September 11...
...and advanced unmanned aerial vehi-cles—the fighters and bombers of the future—are projected to cost as much as F-16s...
...The great gap between strategic ends and military means inherited from the Clinton years remains...
...Moreover, the Bush defense numbers are now projected to decline, reaching 3.3 percent in 2006...
...allies—Great Britain alone is investing billions in development—adding a complicating political dimension to any reckoning of the plane's value...
...From the start, the administration has failed to acknowledge the likely Gary Schmitt is executive director, and Tom Donnelly is deputy director, of the Project for the New American Century...
...It is amazing that a B-2 bomber based in Missouri can fly for days to attack targets in Kosovo or Afghanistan, but soldiers in a tight spot can be forgiven for preferring fire support on the ground which they control...
...Yet despite these expanded commitments and the tensions mounting throughout the Middle East, not to mention President Bush's fierce rhetoric, the implications of a larger war seem to a remarkable degree lost on Washington...
...The program has tremendous support among U.S...
...ground troops gain from their ability to fight at night, they need their own fire support...
...In an internal Pentagon memo, Rumsfeld went even further: "We are past the point where the Department can, without an unbelievably compelling reason, make any additional commitments...
...We now know better...
...The Air Force wants to protect its F-22 fighter program and would prefer to build a strike version of the plane...
...But these goods are not self-perpetuating, they are the fruits of success in war...
...To make the most of the advantages U.S...
...When immediate war costs and past budget gimmicks are factored in—things like mandatory personnel and health care costs—the requested $48 billion "increase" shrinks to about $10 billion worth of new capability...
...People are kidding themselves if they think "transformation" will magically close the gap between available resources and military requirements...
...America cannot exercise global leadership on the cheap...
...Indeed, the Joint Chiefs of Staff say they need at least 50,000 more soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines...
...the estimated costs of Afghanistan alone quickly exceeded $2 billion per month...
...Its original wartime supplemental defense appropriation of $20 billion was not enough...
...Accordingly, the Army soon will have no choice but to change the way it fights...
...This can't last...
...George W. Bush campaigned on a promise to "skip a generation" of weapons...
...Merely to pay for the tactical aircraft whose purchase is already planned won't be possible under such budgets...
...true cost of the war...
...Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has therefore chosen to send 14,000 soldiers home early, rather than reduce other programs to cover the $1.5 billion to keep them on the job...
...military presence in the Persian Gulf has been strengthened, and preparations for the destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime and some sort of democratic reconstruction in Iraq are underway...
...armed forces...
...The long-term budget outlook is even bleaker...
...Now it appears the only program slated for cancellation is the ill-starred Crusader howitzer, and the Bush administration plans no near-term expansion of the military...
...The failure to complete the victory in Afghanistan is partly due to the administration's reluctance to send in sufficient numbers of U.S...
...And even the Marine Corps, though it would welcome the JSF to replace the Harrier, would rather have the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor troop transport, a program the Marines are endeavoring to save (not least from their own mismanagement) and to fund...
...The U.S...
...The United States is blessed with unprecedented power, rich allies in every corner of the world, and political principles that appeal to the universal desire for freedom...
...In particular, Rumsfeld opposes any increase in the number of active-duty troops...
...Yet recently, the Office of Management and Budget cut 30 percent from the extra funding required to cover the reserve and National Guard mobilization after September 11...
...The trouble is that today's varied missions require lots of manpower...
...Ground commanders are likely to be more cautious than before, reluctant to maneuver when air cover is not immediately on call...
...The Navy has announced its intention to cut its buy of JSFs from 1,600 to 1,100...
...And then there's the poor Army...
...For more than a decade now, the United States has wanted to believe that its various military deployments around the globe were temporary— special cases, rather than the rule for the post-Cold War world...
...The administration needs to start putting its money where the president's mouth is...
...The only good news for soldiers is that the Quadrennial Defense Review of 2001 did not shrink forces further...
...Two weeks ago he told a group of soldiers, "Resources are always finite, and the question is, would we be better off increasing manpower or increasing capability and lethality...
...they didn't sign up to be global soldiers, on call 24/7...
...At those levels, the Pentagon will be short of firepower as well as manpower...
...Neither the administration nor Congress treats the war as a reason to accelerate the rebuilding and reform of the U.S...
...For example, all those space-related assets Rumsfeld's team wants are expensive...
...William Kernan, who oversees 80 percent of the forces stationed in the United States, recently told Congress we have an "overstretched" military, struggling to keep up with the demands of global operations and "fraying around the edges...
...The Bush Doctrine will eventually ring hollow unless it is backed by renewed military strength...
...Yet instead of adding to the military's ranks, we have been treating the reserves and National Guard as though they were active duty forces...
...But the termination of the Crusader howitzer will leave ground forces increasingly forced to rely upon air power for close-in cover...
...If defense spending doesn't rise appreciably, we will buy smaller and smaller quantities of each system, forcing up unit costs and operational costs, all the while driving what equipment we have into the ground...
...The Bush request for 2003 would push defense spending to 3.5 percent of gross domestic prod-uct—up from 3 percent in Clinton's last years but down from 4.4 percent as late as 1994...
...What he seems reluctant to admit is that it will also be expensive...
...The bottom line: The United States is not spending enough on defense...
...With estimates of the troops needed for Iraq ranging from 75,000 to 250,000, it's hard to know exactly what to make of this statement except that there are too few men in uniform...
...The Pentagon's budget shortfalls affect everything from its most immediate needs to its hopes for long-term modernization and "transformation...
...Even the victory in the Balkans remains at issue because of doubts among local factions about our willingness to keep troops there in sufficient numbers...
...Nor can we "transform" our way out of this predicament...
Vol. 7 • May 2002 • No. 35
