The Defense Debate
Article Summary and Author Biography
US public expectations of a 'peace dividend' from the collapse of the socialist bloc are unrealistic. Structural properties of US defence policy-making, and the non-existence of any strategic vision not predicated on the monolithic Soviet threat, mean that "for the next several years the 'peace dividend' will be much smaller than enthusiasts hope, and earning it will require departures from customary congressional habits". Offers advice on a strategy for reducing US defence expenditure (1) avoid a return to the 'hollow army' by shifting towards reserve or 'round-out' units (2) cut US forces in Europe in the light of CFE results, not in advance of them (3) defer various high-price equipment programmes, while preserving R&D budgets (4) using arms control to cut what the USA "can safely do without".
Gregory F. Treverton is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Europe-America Project at the Council on Foreign Relations.
For defense issues, as for foreign affairs in general, 1989 was a curious time. The year began with the defense debate that wasn't and ended with the debate that was, with visions of a "peace dividend" dancing before Washington's eyes. In between, it was business as usual at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. The Bush team tinkered at the edges; Congress indulged in its own intramural politics, and the defense budget was caught squarely in the middle.
Defense strategizing flourished as a cottage industry during the transition between the Reagan and Bush administrations. Budget deficits, and fears that much of what the Pentagon had already ordered could not be paid for, left the sense that the Reagan Administration had too long deferred essential choices about military strategy. Faced with a Chinese menu of choices, the old administration had opted for them all; then when money tightened after 1985 it just stretched out the courses.
Yet what money-or the lack thereof-could not accomplish in President Bush's first year, a slackening geopolitical threat will do in the second. The string of incredible events in Eastern Europe has only given credibility to U.S. intelligence estimates of a less menacing Soviet Union. The reduced Soviet threat, combined with pressure from budgeteers, prompted Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to try to head off the defense debate for 1991. The Pentagon was told to plan for a budget cut by several percent and to look for continued savings-as much as $180 billion during 1992-94.1
In the coming year, the politics of the debate will be sharper all around. Cheney's dramatic cuts merely trimmed earlier hopes, not current budgets. For the next several years the "peace dividend" will be much smaller than enthusiasts hope, and earning it will require departures from customary congressional habits. To arrive a decade from now at a defense budget half the current size will require radical restructuring of the military. America must now address the awkward question of how to organize its defense if deprived of the Soviet threat that has driven it for forty years.
II
This is a premium article
You must be a logged in Foreign Affairs subscriber to continue reading. If you wish to continue reading this article please subscribe , or activate your online account to get full online access.
Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.