War Games
Crowe, Admiral William J. Jr.
War Games Why a meddling Congress doesn't always make the best Defense by Admiral William J. Crowe Jr. Congress has 110 new members. Many earned their seats in Washington by promising to attack...
...It is neither proper nor effective for congressmen to tell the Pentagon that it should buy a 40/60 molybdenum-aluminum bolt rather than, say, a 20/80 molybdenum-aluminum bolt...
...No question, they're right, and I wish them the best of luck...
...Congressmen, by their very makeup and their most fundamental responsibilities, are going to make decisions in a political fashion rather than by logic or operational analyses...
...Congress's response to Weinberger's questions was usually: That's not our job, Mr...
...Our defense budget, they said campaigning, should be driven by what's best for the country, not pork-barrel politics...
...Would you be amenable to cutting Israel out of the strategic interests of the United States...
...The plain talk about defense is that the process is fractious and messy...
...There are several culprits here...
...The result is that the Pentagon spends an astounding portion of its time dealing with congressional requests, many of which are unnecessary, and almost all of which concern marginal projects...
...It was a simple vision, one that could rally support...
...It should consolidate the overlapping committees that oversee the Defense Department...
...why don't we cut them out of our strategic orbit and leave the eastern Mediterranean alone...
...That would be a good place to save...
...Unspoken, though understood by all, is the fact that it may be politically easier to deal with the matter next year...
...At present, three different committees in each chamber perform the same function—reviewing the defense budget...
...Of course, putting off a decision to a future date may on occasion be a wise strategy...
...Or perhaps we should forego Pakistan...
...Large congressional staffs generate work...
...Consider an exchange between Senator Sam Nunn and the then-secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger...
...perhaps the political forces will be aligned more favorably for a decision at some later time...
...Congress simply should not be involved in second-guessing every nut-and-bolt issue...
...One of the best was a former secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, a man I had my run-ins with...
...If a legislator argues that the American global situation suggests a smaller military, that might mean, for example, killing the A-12 program...
...As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I found it depressing to contemplate the monumental amount of time and effort we put into satisfying Congress...
...And he better, or they will come back to bite him...
...But actually recording votes on the subject is a risky proposition...
...Normally, the study will provide litde new insight...
...Then everybody who wants the A-12 will say, "Wait a minute, I agreed with that strategy, but I didn't think that strategy meant no A-12...
...So we think, Admiral, that it is necessary for Defense to conduct an in-depth study of the six points spelled out below and report back to us in nine months...
...The military can seldom get support for the mundane essentials it desperately needs...
...Congress, after all, has a difficult time taking future contingencies seriously, especially when there is no pressing political need for them to do so...
...A good bureaucrat understands the political process and manipulates it ruthlessly...
...But even with an excess of funds, we were unable to build up the ammunition and parts inventories until we had made the sexy procurements: more tanks, more artillery, more planes—the big-ticket items that the politicians could get their hooks into...
...Do you think we should defend Turkey or Greece...
...Weinberger's answer went something like this: Senator, I have no quarrel with that reasoning...
...to be published by Simon & Schuster Inc...
...Secretary, it's yours...
...Strategic questions are not usually resolved by the light of pure reason but by the lights of human beings who are by their nature political animals...
...But if these often called-for reforms are put in place, Congress would still not be attending to its primary defense-related mandate: "To spell out," in the words of the Senate Armed Services Committee report, "major strategies and purposes...
...Tomahawk chop To remedy this situation, the first priority is to reduce the size of congressional staffs...
...How about Saudi Arabia...
...In 1950, for example, we put Korea outside our defense perimeter, and look what happened...
...was the 11th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1985-1989...
...The massive expenditures of Reagan's first term allowed American forces to go into Saudi Arabia in 1990 in great shape...
...In the end, Lehman got almost all of his 600 ships, but they were not nearly as well provisioned and armed as we would have preferred...
...if...
...Second, Congress should resist the temptation to micromanage programs...
...Bad policy decisions can sweep you out of office faster than almost anything else...
...Sure, Lehman scored a major coup, but it's the kind of victory that drives professional military men to distraction...
...He had concluded before he was appointed secretary that the United States should have a 600-ship Navy, and by God we were going to have a 600-ship Navy...
...There are some extremely important questions here," runs the congressional rationale, "that have to be answered before we can deal with this question...
...Radically cutting defense jobs during a recession is a painful business...
...For congressmen, thinking about the big picture can also mean shooting themselves in the foot...
...What president wants to say, "I dismantled NATO...
...There March 1993/The Washington Monthly 21 is, but it will mean streamlining the relationship between Congress and the Defense Department...
...22 The Washington Monthly/March 1993 In terms of the political hopes he harbored at the time, he was not eager to be the man who took the Navy from 60 percent spare parts to 95 percent spare parts, or from 10 percent of the required Tomahawks to 40 percent...
...But the Pentagon files roughly 600 reports to Congress annually and answers 250,000 phone calls a year from it...
...One is the spiral-ing growth of congressional staffs...
...But don't get your hopes up...
...generally shy away from policy decisions...
...When a bad decision is made, those who vote for it are likely to be blamed, which means that congressmen Admiral William J. Crowe Jr...
...it sounded good and it had sex appeal...
...Congressmen will not draw the strategic lines, because doing so would alienate important constituencies...
...Nunn pointed out that our national strategic requirements, as laid out by the Pentagon, essentially declared that the entire world is vital to our security...
...Whenever a congressional committee confronts a tough problem, most often because the political forces are too evenly divided, it directs the Pentagon to make a study, rather than admitting it cannot resolve the issue...
...The huge expense foisted on the Defense Department in this fashion makes a $600 toilet seat seem prudence itself...
...Congressmen might find it interesting to debate geopolitical strategy—whether, for example, Congress should approve of convoying Kuwaiti tankers...
...Clearly, we were not capable of defending such global interests with the military we had...
...Copyright © 1993 by Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr...
...The average senator's staff increased from six in 1975 to over 40 in 1985, and a representative's staff from three to eighteen...
...Where do you want to cut back...
...If I believed we were actually influencing decisions or persuading people, I would not have begrudged the time...
...We spend an awful lot of money on the Greek-Turkish area, Senator...
...That would have been a tremendous accomplishment, but it would not have held much attraction for the folks back in Iowa who did not know nor care what a Tomahawk was...
...But they regularly do, most often because a company in some congressman's district produces such a product and wants the order...
...Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen anytime soon...
...I for one was never persuaded that the effort was worthwhile...
...Lehman understood the process, and he possessed an iron determination and a fine sense of timing to go along with his savvy...
...But at the same time, I am not so sure that in our complicated pluralistic society it can be any other way...
...Those considerations bring defense questions right into his backyard, where he can get his teeth into them...
...From the forthcoming book In the Line of Fire by Admiral William J. Crowe Jr...
...Their very numbers lead them to get involved in subjects that are not their business and that common sense would leave strictly to project managers...
...Given that defense expenditures are so profoundly political, is there any way to inject more efficiency into the system...
...Many earned their seats in Washington by promising to attack wasteful government expenses—not the least of which are military outlays...
...Why not...
...We all witnessed this phenomenon as Congress began drawing down the military in the wake of the Soviet demise...
...Among the most counterproductive (and intensely aggravating) aspects of this relationship is the congressional proclivity to micromanage defense programs...
...Strategic questions are almost always political, no matter who deals with them...
...Printed by permission...
...Because it is at heart a political process, military funding is not easily amenable to reform...
...In all fairness, we had so much military funding under Reagan that we did get lots of those things...
...They, like the people they replaced, will soon learn that while logic dictates that the defense budget should be driven by national strategy, every incentive works against congressmen thinking of the big picture...
...Thus, the primary concern of the congressman from Detroit isn't the defense of the country, but how many jobs the Defense Department can give to Detroit and how well he can protect those jobs...
...But directing a study to justify the postponement is unconscionably burdensome for the Pentagon...
Vol. 25 • March 1993 • No. 3
