An unofficial study circulating inside the Pentagon suggests that Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci`s proposed budget for next year of $299.5 billion provides temporary relief-and perhaps only that-from even larger cuts that must be made in military spending plans.
To save money, America`s military forces will be reduced in 1989. Further reductions may be inevitable, and could be severe enough to precipitate the abandonment of America`s military commitment to NATO.
The study, prepared by a Pentagon financial analyst, is a comparison of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger`s $1.8 trillion five-year spending plan for 1988-1992 with the amount of money likely to be voted by Congress over the same period.
It concludes that the Pentagon plan is too high by anywhere from $250 billion to $400 billion. The lower figure assumes defense budgets are held at present levels, allowing for modest raises for inflation. Spending cuts of $400 billion may have to be imposed to bring the budget in line with Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction targets set by Congress.
The $33 billion Carlucci already has cut from the original 1989 plan was accomplished by deactivating ships, cutting fighter squadrons and an Army brigade, and by eliminating some weapons programs. These reductions took the form of a thousand little nicks; not a single major program was lopped off. But they provide the first glimpse of what could become a meltdown.
There isn`t enough money-and there isn`t going to be nearly enough-to support all the commitments remaining in the Pentagon`s plans. In a letter sent last week to Sen. Sam Nunn (D., Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carlucci admitted additional cuts of $203 billion must be made to the plans for 1990-1992 ”before I would be in a position to provide you with a meaningful Five Year Defense Program.”
The mid-level briefing, which has been presented on an ”ad hoc” basis to the military services but not yet to Carlucci, shows how painful those additional cuts are going to be.
The money could be cut by canceling ongoing programs to modernize weapons, in what could be called a ”procurement bloodbath” scenario. Or it could be cut by shrinking further the size of the military force, starting with units deployed overseas. This scenario might be labeled the ”reversion to Fortress America.”
The ”procurement bloodbath” approach is awesome. To amputate $200 billion, more than 150 ongoing weapons programs would have to be terminated outright.
For the Army, program eliminations would include 155 mm. howitzers, the TOW-II and Hellfire antitank missiles, Stinger antiaircraft missiles, 5-ton trucks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, M-1 tanks and AH-64 attack helicopters.
For the Air Force, the list of outright project terminations includes all purchases of Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and the new AMRAAM air-to-air missile just entering limited production, and halting further manufacture of F-15 fighters.
The Navy`s share of project cancellations includes ending production of CH-53 helicopters, Harpoon antiship missiles, LSD-41 amphibious ships, CG-47 Aegis-class cruisers and Trident submarines.
To gouge out the $400 billion in cuts needed to meet deficit reduction goals, additional project kills would include new Seawolf submarines and Arleigh Burke destroyers for the Navy, as well as termination of F-18 fighter production. The Air Force would have to end production of F-16 fighters and MX missiles.
Even the ”Star Wars” missile defense program would have to be shut down to achieve $400 billion in weapons cuts without reducing the size of America`s existing military forces.
The alternative to this ”procurement bloodbath” would be reducing the number of military units.
The one mission that involves a sizable portion of America`s land, air and sea forces is in NATO. The precise number of affected units is classified, but carving $200 billion out of the Pentagon`s spending plans would require the deactivation by 1992 of virtually 100 percent of the U.S. forces now deployed in NATO, plus 7 percent of their reinforcing units based in the U.S. The ”reversion to Fortress America” looks even more draconian if the $400 billion in Gramm-Rudman cuts were to be achieved solely by eliminating military units. All U.S. units in Europe and 92 percent of the reinforcing units would have to be deactivated by 1992.
What would be left? America`s strategic nuclear forces, perhaps 7 of today`s 28 Army divisions, 6 of 37 existing tactical fighter wings (72 planes each) in the Air Force, a lean Marine Corps and a Navy with two-thirds fewer major combatants than the 350 such vessels in the fleet today.
Sen. Nunn arrived at similar conclusions more than a year ago and said it would be difficult to achieve the necessary spending reductions, even by
”terminating every single missile program . . . terminating the F-15 and F-16,” and ”even if we didn`t build a single submarine, cruiser, destroyer, or aircraft carrier during the next five years.”
The harshest effects of the ”procurement bloodbath” and the ”reversion to Fortress America” scenarios might be avoided by facing up to the gaping variance between Pentagon wishes and fiscal reality, and by putting money into programs that can be paid for with the funds available.
But the 1989 defense budget is full of systems that are even more expensive than the ones they replace. For example: Almost $1 billion has been allocated to buy four new C-17 jet transports. This airplane carries less than the existing C-5 jet transport, but with a price tag of $242 million it`s two- and-a-half times more costly.
The budget calls for spending $800 million to buy new AMRAAM air-to-air missiles at $560,000 apiece, but allocates just $56 million to buy Sparrow missiles that are nearly four times cheaper.
The Navy is spending almost half a billion dollars to buy 560 new Phoenix air-to-air missiles. The same money would buy six times that number of Sparrow missiles.
The huge extra cost of the $800,000 Phoenix buys only a slight advantage in combat. In a head-on engagement the slow-moving Phoenix has about a one-mile range advantage over the Sparrow.
A recent study by the Congressional Budget Office said the Navy is 176 aircraft short of the number needed to fill out its carrier air wings. Buying 12 of the new ”D” model F-14s at $73 million apiece won`t solve this shortage. Spending the same money to buy twice as many $31 million F-18 fighters would come closer to solving the problem, although at this price the F-18 is no bargain.
Nevertheless, the fiscal 1989 budget is chock-full of these kinds of choices, where enormous sums are poured into hugely expensive and complicated systems of disputed utility.
According to informed Pentagon sources, Carlucci gave the services appropriate guidance to trim their five-year spending plans. His deputies, however, have not translated his directions into effective management actions to ensure the cuts are made.
Last November the comptroller of the Pentagon, Robert Helm, informed the services` budget officials that complete five-year projections for planning the fiscal 1989 budget ”will not be required for most appropriations,” but only for programs of special congressional interest.
As a result of Helm`s ”escape clause,” a comprehensive five year review was not conducted, and the long-term cost implications of the 1989 budget have not been assessed.
Moreover, on Jan. 25 Deputy Defense Secretary William Taft told the services their next five-year plans could come in as much as 10 percent higher than previous spending targets ”to ensure programming flexibility and a challenge to innovation.”
Taft`s ”10 percent solution” is being criticized inside the Pentagon. Instead of enforcing cuts, the ploy is just as likely to reinforce the big-spending habits deeply ingrained through the entire system.
Worse, by allowing the armed services to plan on more money than they`re likely to get, Taft`s instructions virtually guarantee the budgets once again will get ”front loaded” with too many programs that eventually will have to be cut anyway. The shrinkage of the force would be accelerated, while defense budgets would remain about $100 billion to $150 billion higher than in the 1970s, after accounting for inflation.
The lesson of freewheeling former Navy Secretary John Lehman comes to mind. Responding to criticism in 1982 about the cost of the build-up to the 600-ship fleet, Lehman said: ”Sorry, it`s too late to stop it. We
accomplished it by `front loading.` ”
By that he meant orders for new ships and airplanes were placed quickly with defense contractors, locking in Congress with the obligation to fund the projects to completion.
The Air Force played the same game, with full knowledge of the Pentagon maxim that the unstoppable weapon is the one built in 50 states. The B-1 bomber came closest, with parts subcontracted out to 47 states.
The Army was less adept, but loaded into its plans a highly ambitious modernization program.
Now the 600-ship fleet is dead in the water, at 580 vessels, and likely to shrink further as entire classes of ships approach retirement age. The Air Force goal of 44 tactical fighter wings is now a fond but futile memory. The Army is one-third of the way through a modernization program it will likely never get the money to complete.
The unfolding decline in America`s military forces results directly from continuing indecision and sloppy planning at the top. Congress, always loathe to cancel projects once begun, has provided plenty of cash-more than $1,339 billion from 1983 to 1987. Last year it even appropriated $6 billion more than the Navy requested for two new carriers.
The ”fiscal constraints” lamented by Pentagon comptroller Helm appear to be mostly myth. If anything, the token oversight of a generous Congress may have fueled hopes in the Pentagon of an eventual bailout.
Carlucci is right. The Pentagon`s internal plan is too high by at least $200 billion. But his lieutenants do not appear to be taking effective action, hoping to delay collapse until January, 1989-when the next administration will have to explain how the reported renaissance of American military power imploded overnight.
