[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 78 (Monday, June 20, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        THE U.S. MILITARY BUDGET

  Mr. HARKIN. Thank you, Mr. President. I do not intend to take that 
long. This week, several of my colleagues will be taking the floor at 
various times to discuss the military budget of the United States and 
its relation to our national priorities. I am leading off that weeklong 
discussion this afternoon.
  Most press reports imply that there is universal agreement that the 
Pentagon's budget has been cut to the bone and that any further 
reductions will threaten our national security. Article after article 
suggests that the United States absolutely must have $263 billion for 
fiscal year 1995 to fight off our potential enemies.

  Reading these press reports, one might conclude that if we did reduce 
the budget below $263 billion, then Kim Il-Sung would invade South 
Korea while Saddam Hussein would invade Kuwait once again.
  On the other hand, if we would only authorize the full $263 billion 
that the Pentagon has requested, then one could expect General Cedras 
to give up power in Haiti and the Bosnian Serbs to lay down their arms.
  Mr. President, there is another side to the story. Based on analysis 
by military experts outside the Pentagon, many of us believe that we 
can reduce military spending without jeopardizing our national 
security.
  The truth is that refusing to eliminate unnecessary cold war military 
force structure and hardware I believe jeopardizes our national 
security. To assure real national security we must make investments 
needed to educate our children, retain our workers, rebuild our 
physical infrastructure in this country. Mass transportation systems, 
high speed rail, sewer and water systems all over this country need to 
be rebuilt and, Mr. President, if we want to move people from welfare 
to work this will do more than any welfare reform program envisioned by 
anyone or proposed by anyone. These are the things that we have to be 
investing in in our country.
  I can say as chairman of the Subcommittee of Appropriations on Labor, 
Health and Human Services and Education, I am particularly disturbed 
that for years we have spent hundreds of billions on costly and what I 
consider unnecessary military systems like star wars and destabilizing 
weapons like the MX missile, building our forces to match highly 
inflated estimates of our adversary.
  This has bothered me most of all because these estimates come down to 
be highly inflated, and that is part of what I want to address today.
  With the end of the cold war, we have a unique opportunity to shift 
excess military resources to invest in rebuilding America.
  Last August's deficit reduction agreement effectively froze Federal 
discretionary spending at 1993 levels. This means that we have to now 
make tough decisions, because a dollar invested one place has to be 
offset by a dollar cut from some other program.
  Thanks in part to cuts in defense spending last year, Congress was 
able to shift some funds to the President's investment priorities. My 
subcommittee on LHHS could provide only 29 cents for every dollar the 
President requested.
  This year, however, President Clinton announced that he would not 
accept any further cuts in military spending. As a result of this ill-
advised decision to shield the military from further cuts, my 
subcommittee will likely be able to fund only 18 cents for every new 
dollar that the President has requested.
  It is clear that in a time of even tighter budgets, we cannot 
maintain cold war military spending levels while pursuing post-cold-war 
domestic investments.
  I am concerned that there has been virtually no debate on how much 
military we really need now or in the foreseeable future. Many in the 
administration and here in Congress say it cannot be cut further, and 
that is the end of the conversation.
  I and several of my colleagues who will be speaking this week 
disagree.
  We will be addressing various aspects of the military budget and 
national security during this week.
  So let me begin the debate by looking at the historical military 
spending pattern of the United States. I have a series of charts, Mr. 
President, that I will point out to illustrate some of the things I am 
talking about.
  My first chart shows the budget authority for the military from World 
War II through the fiscal year 1995 request in constant or inflation 
adjusted dollars. As we can see there are basically 3 peaks to military 
spending: one peak was in the Korean war, the other peak was the 
Vietnam war, and the biggest peak of all, believe it or not, was what I 
might call the Reagan war during the 1980's. While the peak may not 
have been as high as Korea, the peak was higher than Vietnam, but the 
total area under this curve is how much total we spent.
  We spent more, again in constant dollars in the Reagan war than we 
spent during the entire Vietnam war or during the entire Korean war.
  Those who warn against further cuts in military spending say that we 
already cut military spending drastically. What they are doing, Mr. 
President, is they are starting at the peak of the Reagan buildup in 
the mid-1980's but I am not certain that is really the proper place to 
start because, as I pointed out, that is higher than either in the 
Vietnam war but not quite as high was the Korean war.
  In fact, in constant dollars in 1995 the request is $4 billion more 
than the fiscal year 1980 military budget. In other words, we will have 
$4 billion more in real spending power than we did when the Soviet 
Union and the Warsaw Pact were still intact and the cold war was 
raging.
  So the question has to be asked, do we really need to spend $4 
billion more next year than we did in 1980, again even after adjusting 
for inflation?
  I might also point out that next year's budget request by the 
Pentagon exceeds the military budget authority for 16 years of the cold 
war.
  But we should not base military spending exclusively on the 
historical record. We should look at our military spending and the 
military capability of our allies and, particularly, the military 
assets of potential adversaries of the United States.
  This next chart shows very graphically what I am talking about. It 
illustrates the dominance of the U.S. military resources compared with 
the rest of the world. In other words, we see here that military 
spending is at $263 billion. Down here is Japan and France and Germany 
and the United Kingdom. Then we get down to Italy and here South Korea, 
there Australia, Israel. Here is Norway. You get the drift. Here all 
the other countries we would consider our allies. Here are our 
potential adversaries, Russia, China, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Iran, 
Syria and Cuba. You can see the amount of military spending by our 
potential adversaries.
  Russia's military budget is now in the area of about $20 billion or 
13 times less than ours. I have listed Russia as a potential adversary, 
although it seems to be a pretty effective ally at this point in time.
  But again you can see the clear dominance of the United States, and 
you add up our allies and you completely dwarf China or Iraq or North 
Korea or any potential adversary that is out there now or in the 
foreseeable future.
  This next chart shows the total military spending of the United 
States and the United States plus our allies compared to the potential 
spending of all potential adversaries. Again I included Russia as a 
potential adversary, but I am not certain I buy that argument right 
now. I think they will not be an adversary of ours for sometime to 
come. The United States spends 3.8 times more than the sum of all 
potential adversaries. In other words, we spend $263 billion. All of 
our potential adversaries spend $69 billion on their military.
  Now look at the United States plus our allies. Keep in mind if we 
fight a war we are not going to fight a war alone. We did not fight the 
gulf war alone and we will not fight any war alone in the future. We 
will have allies. So the red bar shows what the United States plus our 
allies spend: about $531 billion this year. Again compare that to $69 
billion by our potential adversaries. So the United States and our 
allies spend over 7 times as much as our potential adversaries, 
actually 7.7 times to be exact.
  So, again, we see that the United States alone, and you add in our 
allies, we really dwarf anything that our potential adversaries are 
spending on military.
  The next chart shows the per capita spending--the burden of military 
spending on our system. Each man, woman, and child in the United States 
every year spends $1,055. So if you have a family of four, you are 
spending slightly over $4,000 a year, every year, of your hard-earned 
wages for our military.
  Our allies spend only 40 percent, basically, of what we do, about 
$410 per year for every man, woman, and child. That would be Great 
Britian, France, Germany, and Japan--our allies. Our potential 
adversaries spend $49 per year per man, woman, and child in their 
countries on the military.
  Again, this gives you an idea of the imbalance, of how much our 
citizens are investing and how much our adversaries are investing per 
man, woman, and child in their countries.
  But a nation's strength also depends on its economy, on its abilities 
to support a military over a protracted period should a conflict drag 
on.
  This chart shows the gross national product for the same set of 
allies and potential enemies.
  Here is our gross national product. As you can see, the United States 
completely dwarfs other nations. Here is Japan, No. 2; Germany, No. 3; 
France, four; and then I think Italy and the United Kingdom.
  But you get an idea, again, of the gross national product of the 
United States and our allies.
  Once again, it shows that we just dominate everything. Again, we do 
not have as much of a lead in GNP as we do in military spending, but it 
still dominates the total world economy.
  Over here on the right hand side are our potential adversaries and 
their GNP. As you can see, they barely even show up on the chart in 
terms of how strong their economies are.
  If we sum up the gross national products of our allies and our 
potential adversaries, we see that the U.S. economy is $4.87 trillion 
and that of our potential adversaries is $1.02 trillion. So we are 
about 4.7 times larger than the combined GNP's of our adversaries. That 
is just the United States alone.
  But if we add up the gross national products of the United States and 
our allies, our economies are 13 times larger than the combined 
economies of our potential adversaries.
  So with a 7-to-1 military spending advantage and a 13-to-1 economic 
advantage, I think there clearly is room for more reductions in our 
military spending.
  If--and I say if, Mr. President--we cannot defeat any potential 
military adversary when we spend seven times as much on our military, 
then maybe we need to take a closer look at how we spend those military 
dollars.
  Quantitative bean counts of military budgets or the number of planes, 
ships, and tanks, are not sufficient to predict the outcome of a 
conflict. The mere numerical data is indicative, but it is not 
conclusive.
  Take the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein had a clear military superiority in 
the gulf war. For example, Iraq had twice the number of tanks. They had 
4,200 Iraqi tanks; we had 1,956. So they had over two times as many 
tanks as we did.
  Yet, in that war, the United States lost four tanks while Iraq lost 
3,700 tanks. A 2-to-1 numerical advantage for Iraq in tanks turned into 
a 900-to-1 United States kill ratio advantage.
  Again, why? Well, the outcome was due, in part, to the qualitative 
superiority of the United States M1A1 main battle tank. It had lethal 
capability while sitting outside the range of the much-touted Russian 
T-80 tanks.
  On paper, Iraq was the world's fourth largest army when they invaded 
Kuwait in August 1990.
  But the qualitatively superior U.S. and allied forces were able to 
resoundly defeat the world's fourth largest army in just 43 days of 
combat.
  Iraqi air defenses were no match for the Stealth fighter.
  One analytical tool used by the Pentagon in an attempt to estimate 
the actual capability of enemy forces is called TASCFORM--techniques 
for assessing comparative force modernization. TASCFORM, developed by 
the Analytical Sciences Corp. essentially measures the effective 
firepower in a country's military, and equates the estimated firepower 
in terms of equivalent U.S. divisions or air wings.
  Using TASCFORM, for example, South Korea's air force is roughly 
comparable to North Korea's air force--they each have about two 
equivalent United States air wings. The North does have an advantage in 
ground forces with the equivalent of three United States armored 
divisions compared to two for South Korea.
  But adding United States and allied forces would quickly shift the 
balance in our favor. The United States could quickly bring three to 
four air wings into the battle, raising the effective air superiority 
to 3 to 1 allied advantage over North Korea.
  In the Middle East, Iraq has the equivalent of about two United 
States heavy ground divisions and two air wings, down from six ground 
divisions and three air wings before Desert Storm ruined much of their 
capability.
  The U.S. military has clear superiority over both of these potential 
adversaries. Even after the planned reductions of the Bottom-Up Review, 
the United States will have about 20 equivalent heavy ground divisions 
and about 50 air wings in 1998.
  Therefore the United States would have four times the ground combat 
capability of Iraq and North Korea combined--in other words, 20 
divisions versus about 5. This chart shows again the equivalent heavy 
divisions that the United States would have in 1998, compared to Iraq 
in 1992, and North Korea.
  And then if you look at the air combat capability, this difference is 
even stronger. We would have over 12 times the air combat capability. 
In other words, we are at about 50 air wings combined. If you look at 
Iraq and Korea, they have about four combined. So, 12 to 1 superiority 
in air and, as I said, 7 to 1 on ground.
  So, whenever I discuss the fact that we outspend our adversaries by 
over 7 to 1 and have 4 to 12 times greater combat capabilities than our 
enemies combined, I am asked how the Pentagon can justify continued 
cold war spending levels.
  How can DOD justify spending $263 billion when our former enemy, 
Russia, has cut spending to $20 billion?
  The answer from the Pentagon, of course, is the Bottom-Up Review, and 
its underlying justification, the two-war scenario.
  Clearly, we cannot justify spending $263 billion on the basis of 
another Iraq war or another Korean war. So the Pentagon postulates two 
near-simultaneous wars, or major regional conflicts--MRC's in Pentagon 
speaking.
  We can debate whether we would ever have to fight two wars 
simultaneously. The likelihood is very, very small, but defenders of 
the status quo argue and the inflated military budgets argue, that we 
need the capability to fight two wars simultaneously just to deter 
tyrant No. 2 from attacking while we are engaged in a war with tyrant 
No. 1.
  So let us assume for the moment that we accept the need for fighting 
two wars. The Rand Corp. analyzed the two-war scenario. They made some 
very conservative assumptions in this computer war-game simulation, as 
reported by Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives of the 
Commonwealth Institute.
  The Rand analysis assumed no allied support, except for Kuwait and 
Saudi Arabia.
  They assumed two Iraq wars, since North Korea did not constitute as 
large a threat as Iraq, presumably due to the quality and quantity of 
the opposing South Korean forces plus the presence of over 40,000 
United States troops on the Korean Peninsula.
  The Rand study assumed faster response time than in the actual Iraq 
war, eliminating much of the build up time used to prepare for Desert 
Storm, thereby putting more stress on logistics capability.
  And they assumed that these two hypothetical Iraqs had more military 
power than the real Iraq.
  So, here is the situation. They set up a computer analysis. Set up 
two Iraqs, more powerful than the first Iraq with more forces, more 
ground forces, more air forces; assumed that we would have no allied 
support whatsoever. They put them in the computer and they started a 
war on the computer to see what the outcome would be. Despite these 
very conservative assumptions, the Rand analysis showed the United 
States could single-handedly defeat two Iraqs at the same time using 
only 55 percent of the active duty base force military structure 
planned by DOD for 1998, and only 33 percent of the total force 
structure--that is active duty plus Reserves and National Guard.
  Let me repeat. The Rand study showed, using the Pentagon's own 
Bottom-Up Review planned force structure of the United States, without 
any help from any allies, could defeat two Iraqs at the same time using 
only 55 percent of our active duty forces and only 33 percent of our 
combined forces.
  So if the United States military can defeat two inflated Iraqs 
simultaneously with only half of our projected base force without the 
help of our allies, why have we all rolled over and accepted the 
conclusion that the military budget cannot be reduced? If we only need 
55 percent of our base force, 33 percent of the total force including 
our National Guard and Reserves, why could we not reduce the military 
force structure this year and next year?
  Suppose we cut the base force by 20 percent over the next couple or 3 
years. Then we would utilize 70 percent of the active duty force and 40 
percent of the total force to defeat two enemies at once. We could 
still have a reserve of 30 percent of the active duty forces and 60 
percent of the total force structure for unforeseen needs over and 
above fighting two simultaneous wars at the same time.
  I will conclude my remarks today on that note. I believe the facts 
clearly demonstrate there is excess spending in our military budget. We 
in no way need this level of spending for our own defense, nor do we 
even need it to fight the kind of projected wars the Pentagon says we 
might be engaged in, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 years from now.
  So I again want to say I will put my colleagues and the Senate on 
notice that, as in years past, I intend to offer one or more amendments 
during debate on our defense appropriations bills to try to cut 
military spending and indicate the money ought to be transferred from 
excessive military budgets into things like transportation and 
rebuilding our sewer and water systems, transportation systems--
highways, roads, and bridges--and schools.
  Our schools in America need to be rebuilt. There is one estimate that 
showed if we just rebuilt schools in inner cities that are below 
standard--rebuilt them and renovated them--it would take about $120 
billion. That would put a lot of people to work in this country 
building new schools. And we would be better off and stronger for it in 
the long run.
  So again this is where some of this excessive military spending, I 
believe, ought to go. I certainly will be trying again this year to 
change some of those spending priorities. As I said, this is the first 
in a series of discourses this week by me and several of my colleagues.

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