Policy and budgetary considerations affecting force planning are
conditioned by sociological factors as well. The American public is
reluctant to tolerate casualties in any conflict other than one
clearly in defense of American vital interests. This in turn seems
congruent with the desire of some civilian and military observers to
capitalize on what has been termed the "revolution in military
affairs" (RMA). The RMA is meant to occur, according to former
Defense Secretary William Perry, "when the incorporation of new
technologies into military systems combines with innovative
operational concepts and organizational adaptations to fundamentally
alter the character and conduct of military operations." The
revolution, which focuses on remote sensors and long-range precision
strike weapons, on advances in command and control, and on the
components of "information warfare", seems to promise combat with
fewer troops and even fewer casualties. It therefore appears to be
the panacea for which the American public is looking.

The RMA, however, is unlikely to save the day. The command and
control technologies that comprise its core can be no better than the
inputs that feed it and the end use that is made of it. Artificial
intelligence can best help humans reach rational choices in
pre-ordained circumstances, but warfare is notorious for generating
circumstances that do not fall under this category. Moreover,
resource availability, the bane of current programs, will haunt RMA
technologies as well. Even if they can be developed and fielded as
weapons and systems, such technologies will cost far more than
current budgets provide. Only generally reduced force levels will
enable the so-called RMA to materialize, yet the joint chiefs of
staff have been as resistant to force level reductions as they have
been insistent that both procurement and research and development
funds be increased. Given budgetary constraints, this simply cannot
be accomplished--something has to give.

New Assumptions, New Savings

If it is to be a meaningful exercise, the Quadrennial Defense Review
(QDR) should confront directly the political/military, technological,
and budgetary issues that arose from both the bur and the Clinton
administration's employment of military forces during its first term
of office. The QDR must adopt a "top-down" approach. It must first
examine the fundamental political assumptions that underlie our
current and projected strategy. It must then relate those assumptions
to the realities that govern our system of managing and provisioning
the military structure. Accepting these realities calls for:
acknowledging the limited prospects for altering military
requirements through the "revolution in military affairs";
recognizing the need for honest projections of budgetary savings
(including recognition of the limits to savings that can be achieved
by reforming the acquisition process); avoiding excessive optimism
concerning the prospects for further reform of the defense
infrastructure; and, ultimately, accepting the ongoing imperative of
budgetary constraints on force planning and programming.

As to U.S. strategic and political assumptions about the world, we
need first to take a hard look at the matter of peacekeeping. It has
become increasingly clear that, despite its rhetoric, the Clinton
administration really does not see any major threat on the horizon,
and is therefore prepared to refashion the armed forces for
operations in support of at least sporadic bouts of collective
security. It has broadened its peacekeeping horizons beyond existing
multinational organizations such as the United Nations and NATO; in
proposing a pan-African force, for example, Washington appears ready
to create new and untested vehicles for peacekeeping and peacemaking
to which it will dedicate American forces.

On balance, this is a bad idea. The administration is overlooking
America's true comparative military advantage: the ability to deploy
more forces, more rapidly, over longer distances, than any other
power on earth. This ability should be the cornerstone of force
planning. Missions and capabilities that enhance it should be
encouraged; those that detract from it should be avoided. If that
guideline is applied, it becomes immediately clear that the United
States has no comparative advantage in peacekeeping capability.
Indeed, the advantage lies with several states that have trained and
operated forces for such missions for years, even decades. Sweden,
Canada, Austria, Finland, even Fiji, are far better versed in these
missions than the United States. It is to these states, and to others
with similar capabilities, that the international community should
turn for land force contributions to new peacekeeping missions, even
when the United States takes the diplomatic lead.

To be sure, certain peacekeeping operations will require logistical
capabilities that outstrip those of states contributing land forces
to them. In such cases--as for example, operations in Zaire in the
late 1970s--the United States should be prepared to offer airlift,
communications, and other logistical services. But by staying off the
ground, so to speak, it would not become enmeshed in questions of
command authority, nor in plans for nation-building, both of which
have complicated recent American operations in Somalia and Bosnia.

Similar considerations of comparative advantage lead inevitably to a
case for reducing America's active land combat force levels. It was
not at all clear, even during the height of the Cold War, why the
United States made more strenuous efforts to provide forces for the
Central European front than did many of its NATO allies. In any
event, during the 1970s the United States made do with twelve active
divisions, a level below which the Clinton administration has only
fallen in FY 1996. With the end of a clear scenario for major combat
on land, the case for maintaining a land force that even remotely
resembles that of the Cold War era is simply untenable.

It should be noted that many NATO allies are themselves cutting back
on their active forces, signaling their lack of concern about
potential threats to their security. But in so doing they are also
undermining their contribution to America's security. After all,
alliances are meant to provide benefits to all. The United States
benefited from the ability to operate on its allies' soil in exchange
for the promise of rapid reinforcement and, more importantly, a
strategic nuclear umbrella. Perhaps the time has come for Washington
to reconsider whether such an arrangement works to its best interests
in the case of every NATO member. Such a strategic review might be
just the tonic that some allies need to rouse them into contributing
their fair share to their own defense, especially in the form of land
forces, if they wish to continue to benefit from an open-ended
American commitment to that defense.

Additionally, many unanswered questions about the military
consequences of enlarging NATO need be brought to bear. Unless the
European members of NATO take more responsibility for providing their
own ground forces, it may be impossible for the United States to
offer credible security guarantees to new NATO members under current
budgetary and procurement conditions.

Finally in this regard, the administration has acknowledged the need
for theater missile defense; indeed, it could not have done otherwise
given America's experience with Iraqi Scud missile attacks during the
Gulf War. But on the need to develop a national missile defense the
administration continues to hedge, defying the reality of potential
threats from China and the near-term prospect of threats from other
states. The bur did not address strategic forces, and it is unlikely
that the QDR will do so in sufficient depth. This is unfortunate: No
review of America's long-term force structure requirements can be
oblivious to strategic defense issues. Indeed, should Russia refuse
to ratify the start ii agreement, the case for strategic defense will
take on still greater urgency and America's offensive nuclear posture
will, of necessity, have to be re-evaluated.

It may be possible to solve the latter part of this problem, as the
Clinton administration is reportedly inclined to do, by moving on to
a start iii treaty that would further reduce strategic launch
vehicles from 3,500 to 2,000, but this may prove to be politically
unavailable because of Russian demurral, and unwise to undertake
unilaterally. If there is no start iii and the Duma does not ratify
start ii, the cost of keeping weapons in the force that would
otherwise be retired could amount to more than $5 billion over seven
years--not an insignificant sum. Should U.S. planners decide that
force modernization is required in the absence of start ii
implementation, then costs would rise further. Obviously, this is an
issue that ought to be taken seriously in the QDR for financial
reasons alone.

So much for a more realistic set of strategic assumptions; where do
they and the hard realities of resource constraints lead us in
identifying potential savings?

The Bottom-Up Review's rosy assumptions regarding savings from acquisition reform have served only to mask the gap between resource requirements that the BUR generated and the availability of future funds to meet those requirements. Overly optimistic inflationary estimates only compounded the problem of closing that gap. That said, acquisition reform is a long-standing government objective and it remains a worthy effort. But its potential impact must not be exaggerated. While the Clinton administration has made a major effort in this sphere, it is unlikely that reform will save more than approximately $1 billion annually. Indeed, the Pentagon recently reported on a major aspect of acquisition reform, that of simplifying military specifications for contractors (known as "milspec reform") that conflated cost avoidance (unrealized anticipated expenditures) with actual savings. The authors could not identify even as much as $500 million in annual savings.

Essay Types: Essay