[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
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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,''
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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
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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.
____________________