Money for Nothing: A Penny Saved, Not a Penny Earned, in the U.S. Military

SIZED UP

When he was running the Pentagon, James Schlesinger was fond of responding to his critics by saying that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinions but not to his or her own facts. Unfortunately, Condoleezza Rice ("Promoting the National Interest," January/February 2000) and Robert B. Zoellick ("A Republican Foreign Policy") ignore Schlesinger's dictum when describing the Clinton administration's impact on military spending and the state of U.S. armed forces.

According to Rice, the Bush administration "was able to reduce defense spending somewhat at the end of the Cold War," but the Clinton administration "witlessly accelerated and deepened these cuts." Actually, in the Bush administration's four years, defense spending fell by 18 percent -- more than 4 percent each year. In the Clinton administration's seven years, defense spending has fallen by slightly less than 10 percent, which is slightly more than 1 percent each year. Moreover, Rice conveniently ignores the six-year plan Bush presented to Congress in January 1993, which projected a continuing decline in defense spending through 1999. Clinton's actual defense budgets were $2 billion more than the final Bush defense plan for 1994-99, as Daniel Goure and Jeffrey Ranney explain in their new book, Averting the Defense Train Wreck in the New Millennium.

Rice then details the "devastating results" of Clinton's large cuts on the U.S. military. According to her, readiness has declined, training has suffered, pay has slipped 15 percent below civilian equivalents, the services are forced to cannibalize existing equipment, and the military has much difficulty recruiting and retaining people. Leaving aside whether these (at best, misleading) statements are true and resulted from Clinton's reductions, these conditions are not related to the amount of money spent on defense. The nonpay portion of the operations and maintenance account in the defense budget, which funds training, readiness, and maintenance, is 13 percent higher now than when Bush left office. Moreover, if the spending on operations and maintenance is calculated on a per capita basis, it is nearly 40 percent higher today than in 1993.

Rice also accuses the Clinton administration of cutting defense spending to its lowest point as a percentage of GDP since Pearl Harbor. Using shares of GDP as a measure of military capability is both meaningless and misleading. If Clinton had not presided over such an extraordinary period of economic growth, his current defense budget might account for four, instead of three, percent of GDP. Should he be castigated for helping the economy grow? By Rice's GDP standard, Jimmy Carter was better for defense than George Bush.

Most troubling is Rice's suggestion that the U.S. armed forces in 2000 resemble what they were in 1940. But 60 years ago, our military ranked 16th in the world (between Portugal and Romania), was one-tenth the size of Germany's military, and had only 1.6 percent of the world's military personnel. The best way to measure the adequacy of defense spending is to compare it with that of other nations. During the Clinton administration, the U.S. share of worldwide military spending has increased. America now outspends all of its adversaries or potential adversaries combined. Together with its allies, it accounts for nearly 80 percent of the world's military expenditures.

Zoellick is also off base in his critique of the Clinton administration. He writes that it has cut the military by around 40 percent. But it was the Bush administration that reduced the active forces by 444,000, or 21 percent, in four years, unlike Clinton, who cut it only 16 percent over seven years.

Reading Rice's and Zoellick's critiques of Clinton's defense budget reminds one of the early days of the Reagan administration, when several of the president's lieutenants complained about the 1970s as the "decade of neglect of defense spending." They should be reminded that in the first seven years of that decade, the Republicans were in charge and that during President Carter's tenure, defense spending actually increased.

Unfortunately, Rice's and Zoellick's "facts" found their way into presidential candidate George W. Bush's September 1999 speech on defense policy. If the governor becomes the chief executive, one hopes he will discover that the defense funding gap during the 2000 election is like the missile gap during the 1960 election. He should also read George Wilson's new book, which cites former Air Force Chief of Staff Ron Fogelman and former Army Deputy Chief of Staff Jay Gardner as stating that an annual defense budget of $250 billion, plus inflation, should be plenty for the armed services in the post-Cold War period if spent properly. (The budget is now $280 billion.) Finally, Bush should remember that during the Cold War, not a single Republican president, except Ronald Reagan, allowed defense spending to increase.

Lawrence Korb is Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and was Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration.

RICE REPLIES

Lawrence Korb's protest of my facts reminds me of a dictum as well: If you find yourself with a mess on your hands, blame your predecessor. That is the essence of his defense of the Clinton administration.