[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 89 (Tuesday, July 12, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    HOLLOWING OUT AMERICA'S DEFENSES

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, Tony Harrigan's name is pretty much a 
household word, certainly among those of us who have been so alarmed, 
and still are, and who have so strenuously opposed, and still do, the 
slash-and-burn policies that have led to dismantling so much of the 
defense capability of the United States.
  Tony Harrigan has built a distinguished career in journalism as a 
respected editor and now as a research fellow at the National 
Humanities Institute in Washington. As I wrote to Tony this morning, I 
do not believe he has ever made a more significant contribution than 
when he penned his article for the July 11 issue of National Review, 
bearing the title: ``Hollowing out America's Defenses.'' The subtitle 
reads: ``As President Clinton walked the Normandy beaches, did he think 
of the current state of our military?''
  That is an excellent question, and I wish we knew the answer. But we 
do not.
  In any event, I recommend that all Senators and every concerned 
American ponder that question.
  I ask unanimous consent that the aforementioned article be printed in 
the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the National Review, July 11, 1994]

                    Hollowing Out America's Defenses

     (As President Clinton walked the Normandy beaches, did he 
     think of the current state of our military?)

                         (By Anthony Harrigan)

       In the last 12 months American airmen were actively engaged 
     over Bosnia. Marines landed in Burundi. U.S. forces were 
     winding down a long and difficult mission in Somalia. 
     American servicemen lost their lives over Northern Iraq. For 
     good measure, the liberal hawks in Congress are calling for a 
     U.S. invasion of Haiti.
       And all this may be just a warmup. Russian President Boris 
     Yeltsin already has toughened his foreign policy to appease 
     the nationalists and the armed forces. The bear retains its 
     claws. The former Soviet ballistic-missile-firing submarine 
     force remains alive--and growing. Russia is continuing to 
     build submarines even as it seeks massive aid from the United 
     States.
       Elsewhere nuclear proliferation headaches continue to grow. 
     North Korea is suspected of planning a substantial nuclear-
     weapons program. Its forces on the border with South Korea 
     have been augmented and placed on heightened alert. A North 
     Korean general has visited Iran, another rogue state with 
     sizable military ambitions. And Iran has signaled its 
     intentions in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea by 
     negotiating for submarines.
       In another ominous development, China is moving rapidly 
     toward military superpower status. In April, the regime 
     approved a 22 per cent increase in military spending. It 
     plans to purchase Russian equipment more advanced than 
     anything the Allies used in the Gulf War, including the T-800 
     gas turbine tank, a Patriot-type antimissile system, and a 
     new rocket system. The Far Eastern Economic Review revealed 
     last summer that more than 1,000 former Soviet military 
     scientists are working for China. Its nuclear tests continue. 
     Former U.S. ambassador James Lilley has said that this 
     Chinese arms build-up has its sights set beyond China's 
     borders--in other words, it's not defensive. Senator Larry 
     Pressler says the new Chinese ballistic missile has a range 
     of 7,400 miles and is a direct threat to the United States.
       In short, everything that has happened on the world scene 
     in the past year makes clear the need for the maintenance of 
     American military might. Yet Clinton officials insist time 
     and again that there is a peace dividend to be enjoyed. 
     They're part of a liberal consensus that the strong defense 
     structure created in the Reagan years can and should be 
     scrapped.
       The blueprint for the drawdown is the Clinton 
     Administration's ``Bottom-Up Review of Defense Needs and 
     Programs'' issued last September. Despite its title, the BUR 
     is anything but a review of national-security threats and 
     needs by service professionals. It is a top-down statement of 
     the views of President Clinton and his political advisors. It 
     is full of easy optimism. In citing ``New Opportunities,'' 
     then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin didn't examine 
     opportunities for strengthening national security but, 
     instead, proposed that the U.S. ``protect and advance our 
     security with fewer resources, freeing excess resources to be 
     invested in other areas vital to our prosperity.'' Instead of 
     a security review, the BUR is a design for extracting a 
     ``peace dividend'' from the hide of the nation's armed 
     forces.
       Senator John McCain, a member of the Armed Services 
     Committee, sums up the new national-security situation 
     succinctly: ``We are going hollow. We are losing our ability 
     to get there `fustest with the mostest.'''
       The areas where the United States faces serious 
     deficiencies include maintenance of equipment in depots, 
     manpower quality, manpower strength, and modernization of 
     equipment. The Administration is failing to fund the 
     upgrading of armor and artillery, fire support, mine warfare, 
     long-range conventional-strike aircraft for the Navy, airlift 
     for the Army, improved attack helicopters, improved munitions 
     for the Air Force, improved conventional bomber and attack 
     aircraft, and defenses against chemical and biological 
     weapons.


                          turning their backs

       These needs are not addressed, or are muted, in the 
     ``Bottom-Up'' Review. The purchase and deployment of new 
     weapons is presented in a vague and uncertain manner. The 
     need for new munitions is dismissed by an Administration that 
     says existing munitions are adequate to the less ambitious 
     tasks that are likely, a convenient sleight-of-hand.
       Readiness is compromised by other Administration decisions 
     such as using readiness funds to pay for humanitarian 
     operations, which properly should come out of State 
     Department or foreign-aid budgets. The services are deprived 
     of almost $900 million in readiness funds in order to pay for 
     global cooperation programs.
       The readiness problems are innumerable. Here are a few:
       Army. The U.S. Army Chief of Staff has said that ``the Army 
     is on the razor's edge of readiness.'' Manpower cuts are 
     breaking up units and crews, and creating turbulence. Pay 
     cuts are damaging morale. Funds for recruiting have been cut. 
     Funds for maintaining operational tempo have been slashed 21 
     per cent from 1985. Operations and maintenance expenditures 
     have been slashed 36 per cent. Modernization funds have been 
     reduced 50 percent during the last five years.
       Air Force. Funding for the Air Force--so important in 
     Desert Storm--also has been slashed: 45 per cent for fighters 
     and 41 per cent for bombers. It is unlikely that the Air 
     Force will be given a new fighter until 2010. The U.S. has 
     depended on the C-141 and C-5 transport planes for many years 
     and desperately needs the new C-17. It will be provided, but 
     in far smaller numbers than originally announced.
       The Air Force has had its funds for exercises severely cut. 
     Cuts also affect retention of personnel, maintenance, spare-
     parts availability, and other key readiness factors. 
     Munitions are inadequate, and the Air Force has had to draw 
     on war reserves.
       Navy. The most revealing evidence of the Navy's ``going 
     hollow'' is planned cuts in warships from 600 to 346, 
     including a reduction in carrier strength from 15 to 12. But 
     the Navy will continue to bear responsibilities from the 
     Persian Gulf to the North Pacific and from the Adriatic to 
     the Caribbean. And though the 346-ship level is the stated 
     goal, the Navy has only enough money to maintain a 200-ship 
     level. In addition, new weapons programs are grossly 
     underfunded; the Navy will not have a replacement for its 
     aging A-6 strike aircraft until 2010.
       Critical problems exist in many specialized areas of naval 
     operations. Mine warfare is a favorite tool of smaller naval 
     powers, including rogue states, but the U.S. Navy has only 26 
     mine-warfare ships. The Navy's 40 amphibious vessels new in 
     service, meanwhile, are to be replaced by 12 ships of the LS 
     class. It is said that the amphibious-ship total will rise to 
     35 by 2008, but all sorts of Third World crises can 
     materialize in the next 14 years. The Administration has also 
     slashed the number of nuclear attack subs from roughly 80 to 
     40.
       Marine Corps. The Marine Corps needs new helicopters to 
     replace the aging machines now in service. Congress has 
     authorized three combat-ready Marine Expeditionary Forces, 
     but the Corps lacks the money to achieve this force level. 
     The Marine Corps has had to use readiness funds to carry out 
     humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in Somalia and 
     Bangladesh. In the past year, the manning level of the Corps 
     was reduced, but 9,000 more Marines were deployed overseas 
     and for longer periods.
       SDI level. If rogue states acquire nuclear weapons, the 
     Strategic Defense Initiative unquestionably will be 
     recognized as a strategic imperative. North Korea's 
     acquisition of nuclear weapons surely will pose momentous 
     questions for Japan. Will Japan decide to develop its own 
     nuclear-weapons capability? Will it ask the United States to 
     provide a ballistic-missile defense shield? But SDI has been 
     drastically whittled away by the Clinton Administration.
       Command Structure. As a result of defense ``reform'' 
     legislation of the 1980s, the U.S. has moved toward a 
     centralized, Prussian-style command system, which generations 
     of American political leaders and military commanders 
     strongly opposed. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have been 
     stripped of their traditional access to the Commander-in-
     Chief, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is now the sole 
     military advisor to the President.
       The folly of denying the Joint Chiefs their role as 
     military advisors to the President was demonstrated in 
     Somalia when U.S. servicemen were ambushed because they 
     didn't have heavy armor. After the fact, President Clinton 
     insisted the Joint Chiefs had been consulted. Later, he was 
     proved wrong. They weren't because the JCS Chairman and the 
     Secretary of Defense had no legal obligation to do so.
       The first step is for Congress to restore the authority of 
     the Joint Chiefs, bringing back the requirement that the 
     White House consult them about military operations, and the 
     right of the Chiefs to express their several views to the 
     Commander-in-Chief. Lawmakers should also restore the Chiefs 
     to operational control of their respective combat forces. 
     Under such a system--the traditional system--operations such 
     as the Somalia action would be under a task-force commander 
     who would report to the Joint Chiefs.
       The Joint Chiefs would be supported by a Joint Staff under 
     their direction--undoubtedly a smaller Joint Staff than 
     exists at present. When the Joint Staff was created in 1949, 
     it was limited by law to 50 members. As of 1992, it was some 
     3,000 strong--and it reports directly to the Chairman of the 
     JCS, not to the Joint Chiefs. Return of command authority to 
     the service heads would eliminate the unnecessary layers of 
     civilian officials who lack professional military experience. 
     The presence of these civilian planners during Robert 
     McNamara's reign at the Pentagon undoubtedly contributed to 
     the U.S. failure in Vietnam, as they second-guessed 
     experienced air and ground commanders.
       Indeed, the McNamara heritage of interference with military 
     commanders lives on. In Bosnia in April, U.S. airpower was 
     used, as the phrase goes, to send a message. It didn't work, 
     and understandably so. But U.S. planes chasing down symbolic 
     targets of a tent or two evoked memories of McNamara risking 
     American lives by sending U.S. aircraft after token targets, 
     bypassing the militarily significant ones.
       In the course of restoring the services' separate command 
     authorities, Congress should revoke the fatally flawed 
     Jointness Doctrine and the Unified Command Plan that 
     implements it. The Jointness Doctrine amalgamates military 
     forces when cooperation would be more efficient; it blurs the 
     vital distinctions between different forms of military power, 
     and could even wind up placing an Army general over naval 
     forces, and admiral over combat infantry. The Unified Command 
     Plan, meanwhile, changed the old Atlantic Command, a naval 
     command, beyond recognition. It now includes almost every 
     serviceman in the United States, an impossibly large mission 
     without clear roles for the respective service components.
       Compounding these long-standing problems, the 1994 defense 
     authorization bill not only cuts funding for national 
     security, but also functions as a Christmas tree for non-
     defense projects. The Defense Department is forced to pay out 
     $5.4 billion for environmental clean-up work around military 
     bases. Some $979 million in aid to former Soviet republics 
     came out of defense funds, as well as $20 million for women's 
     health issues.
       The Roman philosopher Seneca once said: ``Our plans 
     miscarry because we have no aim. When a man does not know 
     what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.'' 
     Tragically, this is the case with the United States today. 
     The American future is being dribbled and bumbled away in 
     different parts of the world. Military forces are being 
     deployed without a master plan of what the United States 
     hopes to achieve. Replacement stocks of materiel are being 
     drawn down without adequate replacement programs. Tinpot 
     dictators and even regional warlords outfox the government of 
     the United States and cause us to engage in expensive and 
     bloody operations. This lack of planning could result in the 
     United States being plunged into another major war--and 
     without the forces to wage it.

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