[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 35 (Thursday, March 15, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E373-E374]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             MILITARY MYTHS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 15, 2001

  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, one of the most thoughtful analysts of the 
appropriate level for American military spending is Lawrence Korb, a 
former high ranking Defense Department official in the administration 
of President Reagan. Unlike many others who served in the Reagan 
administration and subsequently, Lawrence Korb does not believe that 
conservatives ought to suspend their skepticism about public spending 
simply because the requests come from the Pentagon. He has consistently 
applied his experience with defense matters, his keen intelligence and 
his knowledge of government to point out that we could fully defend our 
legitimate interests with a military budget smaller than the current 
one. Along with Dr. Korb, I am pleased that President Bush is refusing 
to be pressured into asking for billions of dollars in increased 
military spending before he and his staff have a chance to study the 
important issues that are raised by Dr. Korb and others. But I also 
agree with Dr. Korb that an accurate analysis of the defense budget 
requires discarding some of the points which President Bush himself 
made during the campaign.
  In a recent article, Lawrence Korb set forward some of the principles 
that ought to guide such an investigation of our true defense spending 
needs. Mr. Speaker, I disagree with Mr. Korb's first point, to some 
extent substantively, and also in the way in which he has phrased it. 
The fact that most military people aren't on food stamps does not mean 
that it is acceptable for even a small number of them to be in that 
situation. We owe the men and women who volunteer to face danger on our 
behalf better than this, and I am very supportive of proposals to raise 
the pay levels. Given the disruption of their lives and the danger they 
face, I do believe that our military personnel are underpaid.
  But while I disagree with Dr. Korb's first point, I am an 
enthusiastic believer in the rest

[[Page E374]]

of his essay. I was particularly pleased when he noted the absurdity of 
trying to fix the relevant amount to spend on defense simply by looking 
at the percentage which a defense budget represents of the gross 
domestic product. According to this, if we have significant economic 
progress, we are required to increase military spending even if the 
threats against which we deploy our military have deceased. 
Mindlessness has never been on more graphic display.
  Lawrence Korb's clear thinking is a very welcome antidote to the 
efforts being made by some to panic us into busting the budget on 
behalf of unnecessary military spending. I ask that his thoughtful 
article be reprinted here.

              [From the Los Angeles Times, Mar. 11, 2001]

              Bush's First Battle: His Own Military Myths

                         (By Lawrence J. Korb)

       New York.--His campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, President 
     George W. Bush has taken a good first step by not increasing 
     the defense budget he inherited from President Bill Clinton 
     until he completes a top-down review of strategy. Such a 
     review will come to naught, however, if the new president 
     does not reject the six oversimplifications about the state 
     of our armed forces that he embraced repeatedly during the 
     campaign.
       Military people are not overworked and underpaid and, 
     despite campaign rhetoric, most aren't on food stamps. During 
     the 1990s, an average of 40,000 military people were deployed 
     in various ``operations other than war.'' This represents 
     less than 3% of the active force and less than 2% of the 
     total force, counting reserves. A greater percentage of the 
     active force was stationed in the United States than during 
     the 1980s. Certain units like Army civil affairs battalions, 
     which help restore order in foreign countries torn apart by 
     civil wars, or Air Force search and rescue units were over-
     utilized. But that is a management problem, not a revenue 
     problem. As for pay, most men and women in the armed services 
     make more than 75% of their civilian counterparts. And, if 
     the compensation levels of military people were adjusted to 
     reflect the fair market value of their housing allowances, 
     fewer than 1% would be eligible for food stamps.
       The problem is that the military still uses an 
     anachronistic ``one size fits all'' pay system that rewards 
     longevity rather than performance. Also, the military employs 
     a deferred-benefit retirement system that costs twice as much 
     as a deferred-contribution plan, while providing the wrong 
     incentives for retaining the right people for the appropriate 
     length of time. For example, to justify the training 
     investment, pilots need to be retained for 13 years, but 
     infantrymen only five. Yet, no military person is vested in 
     retirement until he or she serves 20 years.
       The military does not need to be rebuilt; it needs to be 
     transformed. In the 1990s, the Pentagon invested more than $1 
     trillion in developing and procuring new weapons. But much of 
     it was wasted on Cold War relics--$200-million fighter 
     planes, $6-billion aircraft carriers, $2-billion submarines, 
     $400-million artillery pieces--that will be of little use in 
     the conflicts of the 21st century.
       The military is more than prepared to fight two wars. In 
     fact, it is becoming more prepared each day as the military 
     power of the likely opponents in these two conflicts, Iraq 
     and North Korea, dwindles. Yet, while the capability of these 
     states declines, the Pentagon has been increasing its 
     estimates of the forces necessary to defeat these enemies. 
     Moreover, the necessity of maintaining the capability to 
     fight two wars simultaneously defies logic and history. 
     During the Korea, Vietnam and Persian Gulf conflicts, no 
     other nation took advantage of the situation by threatening 
     U.S. interests elsewhere.
       Calculating the size of the defense budget by measuring it 
     against the gross domestic product is nonsensical. Yes, the 
     U.S. spends a smaller portion of GDP on defense than it did 
     during the Cold War, but the U.S. economy has grown 
     substantially since the collapse of the Soviet Union while 
     spending by adversaries has markedly declined. Even counting 
     inflation, the $325-billion defense budget--which includes 
     the military portion of the Energy Department budget--that 
     Bush inherits from Clinton is about 95% of what this nation 
     spent on average to win the Cold War. In fact, the last 
     Clinton defense budget is higher than the budget that Defense 
     Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld prepared for the outgoing Ford 
     administration 25 years ago, at the height of the Cold War.
       Carrying out peacekeeping missions, like Bosnia and Kosovo, 
     is not undermining readiness. During the 1990s, peacekeeping 
     operations accounted for less than 2% of Pentagon spending, 
     and readiness spending per capita was more than 10% higher in 
     the 1990s than in the 1980s.
       In order to meet their recruiting goals, the armed forces 
     have not lowered their quality standards below those of the 
     Reagan years. The force that Bush inherits from Clinton has a 
     higher percentage of quality recruits--that is, high school 
     graduates and individuals scoring average or above on the 
     armed forces' qualification test--than at any time during the 
     Reagan years. Most of the retention problems that the 
     services are having are self-inflicted. For example, 80% of 
     the pilot shortage in the Navy and Air Force is caused by the 
     fact that, in the early 1990s, the military made a serious 
     mistake by reducing the number of pilots it trained. 
     Likewise, the shortage of people on Navy ships is because the 
     people are not in the right place.
       If Bush and his national security team abandon these myths, 
     they will have a much better chance of developing a coherent 
     defense program--and may even be able to cut defense spending 
     to an appropriate level.

     

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