There are no quick fixes through acquisition reform or easy solutions through statistical manipulation to the mismatch between defense needs and resources. Claims to the contrary - such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich's proclamation that "we have every opportunity through reform to shrink the Pentagon to a triangle. We have every opportunity to apply the lessons of downsizing, the lessons of the information age" - do far more harm than good. The only way to solve the problem is to give up something in the force structure and, ideally, that something should consist of that which we are likely to need least. This brings us back to the matter of ground forces.

America's strategic concerns, particularly its growing preoccupation with power balances in Asia, militate for a posture more akin to that which it maintained before the Second World War - one that stressed major maritime capabilities, primarily in Asia. The United States should rely on the many alliance relationships that it created in the aftermath of that war for land force manpower - particularly, but not only, in Europe. By reducing the active Army to six divisions, half the level of the 1970s, the United States could still maintain its presence in Korea, its rapid deploying airborne corps, and at least two brigades in Europe. Doing so could save over $7.5 billion in personnel costs, if it were also to reduce the support associated with those divisions (the "division slice"). In addition, it could save over $8.5 billion more in annual O&M and military construction costs. Of course, a portion of the $16 billion in savings could be applied to the procurement of systems to support more flexible, lighter, yet higher firepower Army units. So too could funds originally intended to procure equipment for a ten division Army. Finally, even when reducing the Army by an additional four divisions, the United States would continue to maintain a three division Marine Corps.

As it reduces its active land force units, the United States should also make good on its plans to improve the capability of its reserve units. Reforming the reserves has traditionally been as politically difficult a task as closing bases - and as frequently promised by administrations of the day. The National Guard is a collection of fifty armies that operate at the behest of state governors and often have been a vehicle for gubernatorial largesse to political supporters. Reform of the National Guard, and of the Army Reserve, should nevertheless remain a major national priority. Reserve forces must be able to deploy in short order to remote locales - as the Air Force Reserve has consistently demonstrated it can do, and as Army combat reserves failed to do during the Gulf War.

That said, the case for reducing naval and tactical aviation forces is nowhere nearly as strong. The capabilities of these forces are unmatched by those of other countries. They provide the United States with a rapid response capability second to none. Air forces have limitations with respect to deployability, but, where bases are available, they offer the maximum in firepower that can be marshaled and delivered with the utmost speed. Maritime forces offer presence, deployability, and independence from an overseas base structure that political vicissitudes render endlessly variable.

The specific nature of these forces should be subject to ongoing debate, however. The Navy's desired number of aircraft carriers has been set at fifteen since the 1950s. The Air Force's love affair with bombers continues despite the clear reduction of their strategic value. Other competing weapons platforms should not be dismissed for bureaucratic or sentimental reasons, as has often been the case in the past. There is no place in force planning for longstanding bureaucratic biases against particular naval or aviation systems; such biases frequently surfaced within the secretary of defense's Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation against promising systems such as the Navy's AV-8B Harrier attack aircraft, the Air Force's F-15E long-range fighter bomber, and the Marine Corps's Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Finally in this regard, mobility forces constitute an especially potent and unique American capability. No other state has a cargo aircraft force capable of moving as much outsized equipment (such as tanks and helicopters) as rapidly for a longer range as the United States. Yet it must be acknowledged that the need for such a large outsize capability has been driven by the Army's infatuation with progressively heavier tanks. New developments on the battlefield, such as lasers or depleted uranium rounds, should strengthen the case for smaller armored units. The need for large and expensive cargo aircraft would diminish in turn, as would the dependence of such aircraft on long, well-developed runways - even if they are capable of operating from poorly prepared airfields, as is the C-17.

Aside from these adjustments in the force structure, there are several other lesser, but hardly trivial, ways to address the imbalance between needs and resources. Five are worth noting.

First, emphasize weapons, not the physical platforms from which they are launched. The case for modernizing weapons, not platforms, extends back to the early 1960s. It is no less valid today. If the RMA has any validity at all, it is to emphasize the importance of new weapons at the expense of platforms. Such an emphasis would have a far-reaching impact throughout the defense structure. Tactical aircraft development could be slowed, with an emphasis instead on upgrading current systems. Such a decision could affect the acquisition of the F-22 and Joint Strike Fighter in particular. Similar considerations could militate against development of a new attack submarine, a system whose justification seems to lie more in preserving the defense industrial base than in military requirements.

Second, protect the O&M accounts from being raided for strategically marginal purposes. As noted above, the costs of peacekeeping invariably have been greater than initially estimated. Withdrawing from much of the peacekeeping business could yield savings in excess of $4 billion annually.

A similar figure could be realized through a more vigorous effort to winnow non-defense spending from the defense budget. It is questionable whether any such programs belong in the defense budget. Even if some do, for example environmental cleanup of defense facilities, these could be preserved in the budget while saving as much as $4 billion by eliminating the remainder of non-defense activities.

Third, curtailing base operations remains a major source of savings. The base closure process should again be initiated. Bases under consideration for closure in 1995 should again be brought into the Base Closure Commission's purview. Bases slated for closure should not be allowed to remain open for the reserves or anyone else. Staff working at those bases should be retired. The buildings should be closed and sold or given to the private sector. The Defense Department should no longer be responsible for police and fire protection and other ancillary costs that never seem to go away even after bases are shut down.

Fourth, the Pentagon should be more ruthless about cutting defense laboratories. There is little that these labs offer that the private sector cannot match. While some capabilities are unique to the Defense Department, these are far fewer than their proponents will admit, and many hark back to technologies that have long since been bypassed by the private sector. In an era when the Pentagon has stressed "contracting out" to civilian defense firms, and, more importantly, has acknowledged that technical leadership increasingly derives from commercial applications, the need for a large defense laboratory structure is simply indefensible.

Fifth, the Defense Department must acknowledge that deep cost reductions can only be realized through personnel cuts. Personnel costs amount to about half the defense infrastructure budget. Civilian personnel will soon cost more on average than uniformed personnel. Therefore the stress should be on eliminating civilian jobs. After all, military personnel assigned to support the infrastructure can also fight wars but civilians, in this regard, are strictly unidimensional. Even a skeptical General Accounting Office acknowledged that a vigorous program to reduce infrastructure personnel would yield a five-year savings of nearly $12 billion. Taken together with an emphasis on weapons procurement in place of platforms, elimination of questionable O&M expenditures, cuts in the defense laboratory structure, and equally important, reductions in force structure, these measures would allow us at least to contemplate a defense posture that serves American security and is both affordable and politically acceptable in Congress.

It is impossible to address in one article the breadth of issues that the Quadrennial Defense Review must confront. The fact that a Review is being undertaken at all is praiseworthy in itself; it is long overdue. It is to be hoped that the Review will not suffer from the shortcomings of its predecessor. To do so, it will have to go beyond superficial plans, address the international environment squarely, assess real savings and the difficult political decisions that they will engender, and avoid budgetary sleights-of-hand. To the extent that it does so, it can provide a most useful blueprint for the United States as it faces the next century, very much alone as the world's sole superpower.

Essay Types: Essay