[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 27, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7-S10]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      DEMISE OF OUR DEFENSE BUDGET

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have a great deal of concern over some 
of the things that we have been hearing during this interim when we 
have been considering what we would do if a surplus should become a 
reality. And we and many people have talked about problems in child 
care, in Medicare, in the environment, and in education. But the one 
thing, the one area, that we have the greatest deficiency in America 
in, and the great threat facing us, is what has happened with the 
demise of our defense budget and what has happened to our defense 
system.
  Being the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Readiness 
Subcommittee, we have had occasion to go around and pay visits to a 
number of our installations. Mr. President, this is not something that 
has just come on recently. Although now is when the public has finally 
a wake-up call, thanks perhaps to Saddam Hussein and Iraq, and realizes 
that there is a great threat out there.
  I would like to read just one paragraph out of the 1998 Defense 
Authorization Act under, ``The Storm Clouds Are On The Horizon.''

       There are two key factors that threaten to undermine the 
     readiness of our forces--a lack of adequate funding and the 
     over commitment of a greatly reduced force structure. Unless 
     we take necessary steps to correct these problems our 
     military capability will incur significant degredation as we 
     enter into the 21st century.

  Mr. President, during this interim period, I visited a number of 
installations, including Nellis Air Force Base out in the Mojave 
Desert, and national training systems: The Army Advanced Training 
System, the Marine Advanced Training Center at Twentynine Palms, and 
the San Diego naval operations. Also, I have had occasion to be in Camp 
Lejuene, Fort Bragg, and Fort Hood, and these installations that are 
trying to keep us prepared throughout America, and throughout the 
world.
  I can tell you that we really have a serious problem. We find that 
our operations are up, that now we have U.S. forces that have been used 
in 36 countries in the last 9 years. In the 9 years prior to that there 
was only 22 countries. We have had over a 300-percent increase in the 
pace of operations since 1990. We have 26 Army contingency operations 
in the 7 years since 1991 compared to 10 operations in the 30 years 
prior to that time. There were 26 operations in just 7 years compared 
to 10 over the previous 30 years. What this means is we have a ``op 
tempo,'' or a first tempo, which is a term that is used to measure how 
busy our people are that are out there and how this is going to affect 
all of our other operations.
  So we actually have two problems that we are faced with. One problem 
is the fact that we have reduced our budget to an artificially low rate 
that puts us in the position where we cannot carry out the minimum 
expectations for the American people. And to be specific about it, we 
have roughly one-half of the force strength today that we had in 1991. 
I am talking about one-half the Army divisions, one-half the tactical 
air wings, and one-half of the ships floating out there. So that is a 
serious problem.
  Then we have stood on this floor time and again and talked about the 
problems of our deployment on these contingency operations. I can 
remember standing on this floor in November of 1995 and saying that we 
cannot afford to send our American troops into Bosnia, and that if we 
do send them into Bosnia we will incur an operation and an obligation 
that will sustain the next two decades. The President assured us and 
promised us. He didn't estimate it, Mr. President. He said that this 
operation will not exceed 12 months, and that all of our troops will be 
home from Bosnia for Christmas in 1996. Of course, we knew that wasn't 
true. We knew the President was not telling the truth. I remember going 
over there and talking to them. When I told them up there in the 
northeast sector, the U.N., that it was going to be a 12-month 
operation, they laughed, and they said, ``You mean 12 years.'' They 
said it is like putting your hand in the water and leaving it there for 
12 months. Take it out, and nothing has changed. The President also 
said that the cost would be $1.2 billion. Guess what? It has now gone 
over $8 billion in that effort.

  That is not even a part of it. When the American people are told that 
we only have 8,500 troops over there in Bosnia, that is not true either 
because if you count the troops as of last week that are in Croatia and 
the Moravian countries, it is well up to over 12,000 troops. You go 
over to the 21st Tatical Command in Germany that supplies the logistics 
for the operation in Bosnia, and they are at 100-percent capacity, and 
their op tempo rate is 60 percent higher than it should be. What that 
means in normal terms is that if something happens in Iraq they have to 
support that logistically on the ground from the 21st Tactical Command. 
You go 10 miles down the road to Ramstein Air Force Base where they 
have the 86th Airlift operation, and I defy you to go there and find 
any ramp space that isn't being used as the C-141s, C-5s and DC-17s 
that are bringing in everything going to Bosnia are transferring onto 
C-130s, and off they go. We are using 100 percent of our capacity 
there. So that is a very, very serious problem that has to be 
corrected. We cannot do that and continue to try to rebuild a defense 
operation that has been decimated mostly by this administration. As we 
go around to these installations, we find that our retention rate is 
down, the divorce rate is up, and that we are approaching the hollow 
force days of the late 1970's. We know the two reasons: the budget cuts 
and the contingency operations.

  We have stood on this floor for the last 5 years and talked about the 
threat that is facing the United States of America. It is not just that 
we are not adequately prepared in our state of readiness to take care 
of normal operations should something erupt, for example, in Iraq or 
Iran or Syria or North Korea, but we also do not have a national 
missile defense system. In 1983 we started one that should have been 
deployable by the year 1998. That is now. Someone was pretty smart back 
there. And yet this administration stopped that in 1992. We are now 5 
years behind, if we get right back in, which I think we will now 
because there is a wake-up call that the American people have heard. 
And that is, I would have to say, some good news, that even right now 
this administration is agreeing with what they have refuted over the 
last 5 years.
  I was very pleased to hear Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen stand up 
and say that we now know there are over 25 nations that have weapons of 
mass destruction, either biological, chemical or nuclear, and are 
working on the missile means to deliver those as far as the

[[Page S8]]

United States of America. When Bill Cohen stood up and said Saddam 
Hussein--keep in mind, here is a guy who murders his own 
grandchildren--and Iraq under our close supervision still has enough DX 
gas to kill every man, woman and child on the face of this Earth in 60 
seconds, finally America is waking up, and I am very pleased that has 
happened.
  I have a couple articles here that I will not read from because my 
time is running out, but one article is the one that is the cover story 
of the current U.S. News & World Report that is out on the newsstands 
today. It is called: ``Can peacekeepers make war?'' And they get into 
the fact, as we have found, that if we had to bring these troops back 
and put them in a combat environment, it would take between 4 and 6 
months to train them. So that exacerbates our problem. And the other is 
in the National Review. I ask unanimous consent that both of these 
articles be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1).
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are going to have to do something and 
do that something pretty quick. Unfortunately, as the chairman of the 
Readiness Committee, I recognize the fact that we are going to have to 
come up with some money right away, in this coming fiscal year budget, 
in the defense authorization bill and the defense appropriations bill. 
We are finding that the Defense Department has engaged in policies that 
have caused us to foolishly use money that should have been used for 
readiness. So I am standing here saying we are going to have to do--the 
money can only come from one place. If we are going to try to keep our 
retention rate or get it back up, if we are going to stop the divorce 
rate going up, we are going to have to put some money in quality-of-
life and force strength, and the only place that can come from is 
modernization.
  As a strong supporter of the F-22, I can only stand on the floor of 
the Senate and say we are going to have to delay that program unless we 
are able to come up with some money to put into our budget for the 
coming fiscal year.
  People who are very wise say, well, that is what we depend upon for 
future readiness, the F-22. Yes, we do, but we have to make a tradeoff 
for current readiness or future readiness. It has to be current 
readiness, with the threat that faces us.
  I am here to tell you that we are facing a greater threat today than 
at any time since World War II. We have a reduced force, and we cannot 
meet that threat. It has to be changed.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.

                               Exhibit 1

                  [From the U.S. News, Jan. 19, 1998]

                       Can Peacekeepers Make War?

                         (By Richard J. Newman)

       In January 1991, eight Apache helicopters from the Army's 
     101st Air Assault Division were assigned to fire the first 
     shots of the Persian Gulf war. Flying with their lights out, 
     50 feet off the desert floor, the Apaches sneaked deep into 
     western Iraq and destroyed two key radar sites. The dangerous 
     mission, which largely blinded Saddam Hussein to the 
     subsequent deluge of attack aircraft, was a complete success.
       Seven years later, the 101st is not performing so 
     gloriously. During a November mock battle at the Army's 
     National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., the 
     division's gunners failed to destroy any of the antiaircraft 
     missiles of the ``opposition force.'' As a result, the OpFor 
     shot down all the 101st's Apaches when they tried to mount a 
     deep-strike mission. The OpFor put away half of its 
     antiaircraft missiles, and the 101st tried again. Once more, 
     all its helicopters were shot down. Then the OpFor put all 
     its missiles away--and still shot down six Apaches with tanks 
     and other guns, losing only four tanks in the process. While 
     the OpFor was probably a tougher foe than the Iraqi military, 
     officials familiar with the NTC say the 101st's performance 
     reflects a general deterioration in the last five years in 
     the capabilities of units training at Fort Irwin. It's a 
     ``very sad situation here,'' said one NTC official.
       Throughout America's armed forces, there is mounting 
     evidence that conventional combat skills--and the warrior 
     ethic that goes with them--are being eroded by a combination 
     of downsizing, budget cuts, and widespread commitments to 
     noncombat operations in Bosnia, the Middle East, and 
     elsewhere. A December report by a Senate Budget Committee 
     analyst cited ``extremely serious Army-wide personnel and 
     training (i.e., readiness) problems,'' such as units half 
     staffed in key positions like infantry and mechanics. With 
     troop levels being cut to free more money for high-tech 
     weapons systems, the report predicted, those problems will 
     get worse.
       Soldiers seem to agree: In a 1997 ``leadership 
     assessment,'' Army officers in 36 percent of a series of 
     focus groups said their units don't know how to fight; nearly 
     half of those groups expressed concern about the Army's 
     growing ``hollow,'' a provocative allusion to the inept, so-
     called hollow force of the 1970s.
       In the Air Force, ``mission capable'' rates for some 
     fighter jets, which measure how many planes can be ready for 
     war on short notice, are more than 15 percentage points lower 
     than they were in 1989. ``We've got some severe stresses,'' 
     says Gen. Richard Hawley, head of the Air Force's Air 
     Combat Command. ``There's not enough resilience in the 
     force.'' Even the Navy and the Marine Corps, which are 
     better structured to endure long deployments, are 
     struggling. Downsizing and budget cutting have left some 
     ships short of parts and crew members and have forced 
     commanders to increase their estimates of how long it 
     would take to be ready to fulfill wartime tasks. Last fall 
     Rear Adm. Daniel Murphy, the Navy's head of surface 
     warfare, said it may be necessary to pay bonuses to 
     sailors in the surface fleet--like those paid to aviators 
     and submariners--to keep experienced sailors in the Navy.
       Do gaps in the force matter? The U.S. military can 
     obviously afford to relax the hair-trigger posture that 
     became the norm over 40 years in the cold war. U.S. defense 
     funding is roughly equal to that of the next six spenders 
     combined. The once-feared Soviet military has dwindled from 4 
     million troops in 1990 to a Russian force of 1.2 million--
     with such problems that it could not defeat a ragtag rebel 
     force in the tiny province of Chechnya in 1995. Analysts 
     think it will be at least 15 years before a ``peer 
     competitor'' such as China or a resurgent Russia could 
     challenge the United States militarily. No country now poses 
     a serious threat to American territory.
       More with less. But in many ways the American military has 
     a uniquely demanding job today. Instead of preparing largely 
     for territorial defense, U.S. troops must safeguard vaguely 
     defined American and global ``interests'' in an increasing 
     number of far-flung places. Since 1990, U.S. armed forces 
     have been utilized in 36 foreign missions, compared with just 
     22 between 1980 and 1989, according to analysis by the 
     Congressional Research Service. And there have been fewer 
     troops and dollars to carry out those missions. Since 1989, 
     administrations of both parties have cut the armed forces by 
     one third, and the defense budget by 30 percent, after 
     inflation. The changes were inevitable, with the demise of 
     the Soviet threat, but they still affect the military's 
     ability to meet increasing demands.
       The busy pace that results appears to be driving out more 
     experienced service members than ever. In the Marine Corps, 
     23 of the 175 captains chosen last year to attend the 
     prestigious Amphibious Warfare School in Quantico, Va., 
     decided instead to leave the Marines; statistics weren't kept 
     before 1995, but officials say it used to be rare for more 
     than three or four to drop out. The Army recruited only 70 
     percent of the infantrymen it needed in the year ending last 
     September, though Army officials expect that to improve. A 
     1997 report released by Rep. Floyd Spence, chairman of the 
     House National Security Committee, cited Army statistics 
     showing that 125 infantry squads--equivalent to about five 
     500-man battalions--are unmanned, keeping units from training 
     at the appropriate combat strength. And increasingly, Army 
     and Air Force units put off combat training because they are 
     too busy with ``low intensity'' missions or need the money 
     elsewhere.
       In the past, military leaders have used readiness 
     ``scares'' to plead for more money for favored weapons or 
     other programs. These days, most Pentagon officials 
     understand that total defense budgets will not rise--and so a 
     gain for one branch comes out of another's share. But they 
     also complain that frequent ``low intensity'' missions--such 
     as peacekeeping, counterdrug operations, humanitarian 
     efforts, and even joint exercises with new Eastern European 
     allies--are diluting the war-fighting capability of U.S. 
     troops by disrupting combat training and breaking down unit 
     cohesion. Ultimately, that is producing an identity crisis: 
     Is the American military's purpose still ``fighting and 
     winning our nation's wars,'' as the Pentagon's national 
     military strategy states? Or are America's enemies so few 
     and feeble that U.S. troops can focus less on war and more 
     on other problems throughout the world?
       By its own benchmarks, U.S. military manpower and readiness 
     are falling short. Since 1993 the government's national 
     security strategy has called for U.S. troops to be prepared 
     to fight two regional wars, presumably in Korea and Iraq, 
     less than 45 days apart. (Before that, the Pentagon planned 
     for one very large war with the Soviet Union and lesser 
     conflicts elsewhere, but didn't quantify them.) The 
     Pentagon's quadrennial defense review, released last May, 
     said U.S. forces also must be prepared for greater 
     involvement in ``smaller-scale contingencies,''

[[Page S9]]

     such as peacekeeping in Bosnia and the ongoing enforcement of 
     the Iraqi no-fly zones--even though at the same time the 
     Pentagon cut the military by 62,000 troops.
       That reduction was part of a deliberate trade-off to pay 
     for new weapons, such as the joint strike fighter and the F-
     22 aircraft, a new carrier, and tank upgrades. Many analysts 
     agree on the need to modernize some fighting platforms that 
     are 15 to 20 years old. Yet to some officials, the Pentagon's 
     reliance on the offerings of defense contractors borders on a 
     dysfunctional dependency. ``We can beat the Chinese or the 
     Russians, but we can't beat Lockheed Martin or Ingalls 
     Shipbuilding,'' says Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, an 
     intelligence analyst who has written widely on strategic 
     planning. ``We're spending so much money on aircraft and 
     ships that we'll paralyze the future force.'' Bases that are 
     no longer needed to support a smaller force also suck up 
     cash. The Pentagon wants to close some of them but has met 
     resistance from Congress.
       Such trade-offs make it harder to meet demands on the 
     military today. A classified Pentagon memo written after a 
     Joint Staff war game last spring said the game ``made it 
     obvious that we cannot sustain current levels of overseas 
     presence,'' citing negative effects on ``maintenance, 
     personnel, and training readiness.'' Frederick Kagan, a 
     history professor at West Point, says downsizing alone would 
     make it difficult for the United States to fight even one 
     regional war today. The Army, he says, has only six heavy 
     divisions--too few to field the six division equivalents that 
     fought in the Persian Gulf war while still leaving one 
     division in South Korea to deter an invasion from the north. 
     John Correll, editor of Air Force magazine, points out that 
     the Pentagon said it would take 24 fighter wings to win two 
     wars when it first scripted that scenario in 1993. The Air 
     Force has since been cut to 20 fighter wings, but the 
     Pentagon says this is still enough.
       Perhaps most significant is that the declining emphasis on 
     war fighting is not being managed--it is just happening 
     haphazardly as units cut whatever corners on training time 
     and war-fighting preparations they can in order to fulfill 
     assigned missions or meet their budgets. In the Persian Gulf 
     region, for instance, there are usually anywhere from 100 to 
     300 aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. 
     Pilots of F-15, F-16, and A-10 jets typically fly four-hour 
     patrols that consist mainly of ``left-hand turns.'' The 
     flights are so routine and uneventful that pilots pass the 
     time asking each other movie-trivia questions over their 
     radios. During 45- to 90-day tours in the desert, pilots 
     spend so little time practicing combat maneuvers that when 
     they return home, it takes two to three months of training 
     before they are considered fully ready for war again. A 1997 
     Rand study even suggests that repetitive air patrols may 
     amount to ``negative training,'' desensitizing crews to 
     dangers and degrading their situational awareness.
       Synergy. Those problems on their own may be manageable. But 
     shortfalls in training, readiness, and manpower often feed on 
     one another, multiplying the impact of each. For the 69th 
     Fighter Squadron at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia--which 
     soon will leave for a 60-day rotation enforcing the Iraqi no-
     fly zone--a shortage of spare parts means ground crews must 
     regularly ``cannibalize'' jets, taking parts from one to make 
     another fly. That is not a new practice. But the wing's 
     recent cannibalization rate, which measures parts taken from 
     jets versus missions flown, has topped 25 percent, three 
     times higher than its 8 percent goal. Overall, the wing's 
     goal is a mission-capable rate of 80 to 84 percent; but rates 
     have been below 70 percent for over a year. The mission-
     capable rate for all F-16s belonging to Air Combat Command is 
     77 percent, down from 90 percent in 1989; for F-15 air-to-air 
     fighters the rate has fallen from 85 percent to 77 percent.
       With a smaller military, troops are being sent more 
     frequently on drawn-out missions such as those in Bosnia--
     which President Clinton last month declared to be an open-
     ended commitment--and the Persian Gulf, where the U.S. 
     commitment is 7 years old and growing. Increasingly long 
     deployments away from home and aggressive hiring by growing 
     commercial airlines are driving many pilots out of the Air 
     Force once they have fulfilled their seven-year commitment. 
     In the A-10 squadron at Moody, six out of the nine pilots 
     eligible to leave this year decided to do so--despite 
     increased bonuses of up to $22,000 for staying in. Throughout 
     the Air Force, retention rates for pilots fell to an 
     estimated 75 percent in 1997, down 12 points from 1995 
     levels. The Air Force has had other pilot crunches--in the 
     early 1980s, for example, when airlines were aggressively 
     luring away fliers--but the problem then was not exacerbated 
     by budget cuts and increased missions, as it is now.
       The Air Force is compensating by running more people 
     through flight school--but with junior pilots replacing 
     senior ones, there could soon be a sharp drop in overall 
     experience levels. Mechanics and other key personnel are also 
     affected. One C-130 pilot says: ``We're getting a lot of 
     [mechanics] with no C-130 experience. They ask, `How do you 
     turn this thing on?' If he's asking how to turn it on and 
     it's his job to fix the system, there's obviously a 
     problem.'' Many pilots fear that such shortages could lead to 
     more accidents.
       The Army faces similar strains. After one infantry unit 
     returned from a peacekeeping mission in Macedonia in 1994--
     where it went without its Bradley fighting vehicles--it 
     received the lowest score in its division on tests of its 
     ability to shoot and operate its Bradleys. A Rand study to be 
     released within the next month found that Army troops sent 
     frequently on peace operations, such as military police and 
     certain transportation units, are underprepared for their 
     wartime tasks.
       As the service most dependent on people, the Army is 
     particularly vulnerable to ripple effects that begin with 
     personnel shortfalls. A lack of infantrymen, mechanics, and 
     mid-grade officers forces the Army to stitch units together 
     in order to field the appropriate force for missions in 
     places such as Bosnia. That in turn breaks up units, 
     undermining the cohesion needed for infantry, tanks, 
     artillery, and aviation to fight as ``combined arms''--a 
     level of performance critical to success in modern combat.
       The 1st Armored Division in Germany epitomizes the problem. 
     It has two staffs--one in Germany, one in Bosnia--and troops 
     in at least three different regions. ``The logic of 
     maintaining readiness is thrown astray by this piecemeal 
     discombobulation,'' says an Army general. The Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff have begun to study what would happen if units doing 
     peace operations were suddenly needed in a war--or two wars. 
     Early findings: Moving troops out of one place and into a war 
     zone would ``put a strain on an already fragile 
     transportation system,'' according to one classified Pentagon 
     document. Another cites ``many more risks''--including the 
     potential loss of equipment in a hasty withdrawal and the two 
     to six months it would take to retrain units for war.
       Above all, some fear that soldiers are not learning the 
     basic lessons needed to succeed in war. Units going through 
     the National Training Center or the Joint Readiness Training 
     Center in Louisiana are barely more than half staffed, says 
     retired Marine Corps Gen. John Sheehan. That, the Senate 
     Budget Committee report noted, violates the Army's doctrine 
     to ``train just as you go to war.''
       ``We're raising a generation of young leaders who are not 
     learning to run large organizations,'' says Sheehan. ``They 
     won't know how to command their troops even if they get them 
     all in a war.'' More important may be the messages sent by 
     top commanders. ``We have no leaders talking to us about how 
     important it is to prepare your soldiers for battle so they 
     don't die in combat,'' says an Army major. ``It's 
     disheartening to many of us.'' That may also be causing 
     deeper problems not easily fixed by more funding, higher-tech 
     weapons, or better training. ``The brass are refusing to 
     stand up for the warrior spirit,'' says John Hillen, a 
     Persian Gulf war veteran and fellow at the Council on Foreign 
     Relations. Recent imbroglios over the proper role of women in 
     the military have added to the distractions.
       Hanging touch. Top Pentagon leaders insist the military is 
     not going soft. In an interview last week, Gen. Henry 
     Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dismissed 
     comparisons between the demoralized force of the 1970s and 
     today's. ``There is a world of difference between where we 
     were then and where we are now,'' he said. ``We have a 
     tremendously talented bunch of young men and women.'' Nor 
     does Shelton believe that anecdotal reports of problems, on 
     their own, indicate a readiness shortfall. He and others say 
     that the Pentagon's carefully monitored readiness statistics 
     do not indicate serious degradations in the force.
       But those figures--which measure how long it would take a 
     unit to be ready for war--are somewhat subjective, based on 
     commanders' own estimates of how well their troops are 
     trained. Some doubt their validity. ``The readiness rates are 
     false,'' one Army colonel flatly states. ``There is a lot of 
     pressure from higher-ups to inflate them. It's like all the 
     students are getting A's, then flunking the final exam.'' 
     Shelton does acknowledge some readiness ``issues,'' 
     particularly problems with highly skilled troops leaving the 
     service. Some senior and retired leaders who served during 
     the 1970s think those are ominous signs. They say that 
     readiness tends to slip gradually at first--but at a point 
     begins to drop precipitously, and then becomes very hard to 
     reverse.
       The Pentagon has protected some of its key units from 
     cutbacks and other distractions. The 2nd Infantry Division in 
     South Korea, for example, which could absorb the brunt of a 
     North Korean invasion with less than three days' notice, is 
     staffed at over 100 percent, including some 
     ``augmentees'' from the South Korean Army. Commanders are 
     so focused on war they are almost scornful of any other 
     type of mission. ``We don't face the same problems 
     stateside units do,'' says Lt. Col. Robert Sweeney, former 
     commander of the 4th Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment. ``My 
     focus is clear. I'm not going to be doing humanitarian 
     operations.'' Even though assignments to Korea are 
     considered a ``hardship tour''--an entire year's 
     deployment, with no family allowed for most troops--
     commanders say a clear focus, and a ready enemy, make it 
     easy to sustain morale.
       JSTARS, where are you? But even there the tip of the spear 
     may be getting duller, U.S. military planners in South Korea 
     say budget constraints and competing demands elsewhere keep 
     them from getting enough access to ``special mission'' assets 
     such as Joint STARS surveillance aircraft, F-117 stealth 
     fighters, and F-15E strike jets. ``We're being told to be 
     more efficient,'' says an intelligence staffer in Seoul. 
     ``But efficiency doesn't cut it in war. Redundancy does.'' 
     Some analysts think new technology may greatly reduce the 
     numbers of ground troops and conventional platforms needed in

[[Page S10]]

     a war. But relying on new systems before they are battle 
     tested leaves troops feeling they have less margin for error.
       Shortfalls appear to be more serious in the Persian Gulf, 
     where a rematch with Iraq would probably come with more 
     advance warning--but still be bloody. A radar operator who 
     has worked at an airfield in Kuwait says there are no longer 
     any backups for the facility's radar, the only ground-based 
     system available for tracking nearby aircraft, including 
     enemy planes. ``We're a forward operating unit and we still 
     don't get what we need,'' he says. ``When that baby goes down 
     and you realize there's no backup, you start saying, `Where 
     is the priority?' ''
       Troops' morale, an intangible but essential ingredient of 
     success in combat, can weather temporary problems. But 
     persistent shortages and seemingly never-ending commitments 
     take a toll. ``Troops don't understand why, if what they do 
     is so important, they don't give us the tools to do it,'' 
     says Lt. Col. Michael Snodgrass, commander of the 69th 
     Fighter Squadron at Moody Air Force Base. Enthusiasm suffers 
     first. Before Desert Storm, says Col. Billy Diehl, acting 
     commander of Moody's 347th Wing, the Air Force's annual Red 
     Flag aerial combat exercise ``was the highlight of the 
     year.'' But in 1996, when he arrived at Moody, ``everybody 
     was thrilled that it was canceled.''
       A more important casualty is confidence. A C-130 pilot says 
     that due to training cutbacks, ``My own skills are nowhere 
     near where they were. Some of the new guys, I'm deathly 
     afraid to go to war with them. They just don't have the 
     training.'' John Stillion, a former Air Force navigator and 
     Rand analyst, says that on a recent visit to an Air Force 
     base, morale was ``far worse than I've ever seen it. I'm 
     amazed at how bitter they sounded.''
       Surprisingly, few in the military--which studies show is 
     overwhelmingly conservative today--feel the solution is to 
     withdraw from its peacekeeping missions in the world's 
     trouble spots. One typical Army colonel strongly objects to 
     the political gamesmanship of setting unrealistic deadlines 
     for troop adjustments in places such as Bosnia. But 
     nonetheless, he believes U.S. troops should be there: ``It is 
     appropriate use of the military, mainly because nobody else 
     can do it.''
       Some practical steps could help strike a better balance 
     between preparing for war and preserving peace. Many in the 
     Army would like to see the National Guard shoulder more of 
     the burden for peacekeeping, Rand researchers and others 
     argue that a more modular structure would make the Army much 
     more flexible. Ideas include self-supporting combat groups of 
     about 5,000 troops--one third the size of a division--or 
     discrete support units that can each carry out a variety of 
     functions, instead of specializing in transportation or 
     engineering. Some in the Air Force are pushing a ``cop on the 
     beat'' approach, enforcing no-fly zones with random patrols, 
     augmented by sensors that detect air and ground movements.
       But what America's troops crave most is a clear message 
     from their leaders stating the purpose of U.S. forces. Are 
     they warriors, whose main job is to fight and win wars? Or 
     police assigned to prop up struggling nations and keep the 
     world safe for American commerce? If U.S. forces must fulfill 
     both roles, how can they do each well? Many members of the 
     military believe that before those questions can be answered, 
     there needs to be greater awareness of what U.S. troops 
     accomplish by being everywhere they are--and what risks are 
     involved in spreading them ever thinner. ``We need a better 
     understanding among the American public that we have 
     interests outside the United States,'' says Lt. Gen. Joseph 
     Hurd, commander of the 7th Air Force in South Korea. Once 
     those interests are sorted out, it wouldn't hurt to inform 
     the troops in the ranks, either.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hutchinson). The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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