[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 154 (Friday, November 18, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13331-S13333]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEFENSE BUDGET
Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I decided to come to the Senate for a few
minutes this evening to speak to the Senate because of growing concern
over the defense budget and, in particular, the growing likelihood that
we are going to see cuts in the defense budget so that next year's
budget is lower than what the President had proposed for fiscal year
2007.
I am moved especially by a recent ``Inside Defense'' column which
reports that because of pressure from the Office of Management and
Budget, the Deputy Secretary of Defense may well require that the
service chiefs take $7.5 billion out of next year's budget and $32
billion in cuts over the next 5 years--this at the end of the budget
cycle, not as a result of an assessment of military need or necessity.
As I will show in a minute, one could hardly in any dispassionate view
of our military needs believe we could absorb $7.5 billion in cuts next
year because of procedure that is budget driven. When I see that, it
reminds me of other things I have been hearing lately. I felt it was
deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra might have said.
I remember the days in the 1990s when military needs were determined
by the budget rather than the budget being determined by military
needs. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended, our country
was justifiably pleased. We believed there was a peace dividend
available. The Clinton Administration took a lot of money out of the
defense budget. I will go into that in a minute. They took too much out
of the defense budget, and left a force that by the end of the 1990s
was hollowing out. Our military was not as prepared as it should have
been. We have been doing the best we can in the last few years to
reconstitute that force, but now we may be headed in the wrong
direction.
I emphasize, this pressure is not from within the Department of
Defense. It is not what the Department wants to do. It is what the
Department may be forced into as a matter of false economy. There is no
economy more false than depriving our military and our men and women of
what they need to defend us.
Let me go over a little bit more of a history lesson in some depth.
Defense spending actually decreased in real terms every year from 1990
through 1999. In fact, during 3 years in that period, it decreased in
nominal terms by almost $50 billion.
Actual dollars, or nominal dollars, went down in the defense budget
over 3 years during that period by $50 billion, and in every year
during that period military spending decreased in real terms.
The reason was, some people thought with the fall of the Soviet Union
we would need the military less. That was true for the nuclear arsenal,
but not true for the people in the military. It turned out we needed
conventional forces actually more than we needed them before the fall
of the Soviet Union because deployments went up. We found, in the post-
Cold War era, that regional conflicts around the world, the ethnic and
religious and regional conflicts that had been suppressed by the
bipolar nature of world competition, rose to the surface.
I remember reading what former CIA Director Gates said about it. He
said: History had not ended with the fall of the Soviet Union. It had
just been frozen before that. And he said: ``Now it is thawing out with
a vengeance.''
Well, when you spend less and less overall, at least as against
inflation, and you have to spend more and more on operations and
maintenance, on readiness, because you are actually using the troops
more and more, something has to give. You cannot take more and more of
a percentage for operations and maintenance out of a budget which is
less and less, at least as adjusted against inflation, without
something giving. And what gave was procurement.
We took basically a decade-long ``procurement holiday.'' By the last
few years of the 1990s most people realized what was happening and we
were able to push more money back into the defense budget, but it was
not enough to make up for what had happened before.
From 1975 through 1990, we purchased, on average every year, 78 scout
and attack helicopters. From 1991 through the year 2000, we purchased 7
per year on average. For battle force ships from 1975 through 1990, it
was 19 a year; 7 a year from 1991 to the year 2000. For fighter
aircraft for the Navy, we purchased 111 per year from 1975 through
1990. We purchased 42 per year on average in the decade of the 1990s. I
could go on and on.
For tankers, we purchased 5 per year on average during the 15-year
period from the mid-1970s to 1990. In the mid 1990s, we purchased one
per year. For tanks, artillery, and other armored vehicles listen to
this, the basic platforms the Army uses; tanks, artillery and other
armored vehicles--we purchased 2,083 on average every year from 1975 to
1990. But we purchased 145 on average every year from 1991 through the
year 2000.
What happened is what you would have expected. The average age of the
force and the equipment in the force
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grew. Look at legacy aircraft, the A-10, the ``Warthog,'' 24 year old;
the B-52 bomber, 44 years old; the C-130 transport, 33 years old; the
KC-135 tanker, 43 years old. The procurement holiday left us with
equipment that was too old.
Well, what happened? Beginning at the end of the 1990s, Congress and
the President at the end of the Clinton administration, and especially
with the beginning of the Bush administration--began to respond. The
Chiefs complained to the point where people who didn't get it earlier
finally saw what we were talking about. The decision was made to
increase spending enough to sustain the volunteer force, to
recapitalize the basic equipment that we had not bought in the 1990s,
and to begin designing and producing the new generation of systems that
the men and women in our military would use for decades to come.
The plan was to increase defense spending by a modest amount above
inflation, beginning around the year 2001, so that these needs could be
met. There were many of us who were concerned that was not enough
money. The Department of Defense has traditionally been rather
optimistic in its estimation of costs. The CBO traditionally has
claimed we needed between $20 billion and $30 billion more than even
was estimated at that time. But at least we had a plan. It was a
beginning. It was based on an actual if perhaps optimistic estimate of
need.
Unfortunately, the plan has not been as effective as we hoped in
achieving its goals, and particularly in recapitalizing the force.
There are a lot of reasons for that. One is that op tempo, operational
tempo, has been even higher than we expected after what we experienced
in the 1990s. It is what the military calls ``mission creep,'' a
significantly expanded number and variety of missions that drive up
defense costs because they stress the force. Operations and maintenance
costs go up, readiness costs go up. Just staying in place, just keeping
the force you have and the equipment you have maintained and ready
becomes more difficult.
But what was the mission creep? The September 11th attacks had
something to do with that, and then Afghanistan and Iraq. Our Armed
Forces have become global first responders. We have homeland security
missions now that we never anticipated. Contingency peace enforcement
missions around the world, special ops, and ongoing training
operations. Operational tempo is at a historic high. It is likely to
remain so.
This means not only that we are sucking up more money in operations
and maintenance, it means the equipment we have is being used up even
faster. Even if you maintain it properly, if you are using it at a
greater rate than you anticipated, it is not going to last as long. We
face a situation where we are going to have to reset or reconstitute
the basic equipment in the force.
In addition, personnel costs have been higher than we anticipated
because we wanted to do right by the men and women in America's
military. We voted for pay raises. And we should have. We have
increased housing allotments. We have met the obligations we promised
our retirees regarding health care. Those were good things. I supported
them. But adjusted for inflation, personnel costs have increased from
1999 to 2006 from $92 billion to $109 billion annually. That alone
would eat up any of the real increases we had planned and have been
able to give the military in the last 5 years.
In addition, we are facing a threat, at least sooner, and certainly
more seriously--or a potential threat--than we thought we would have to
face; and that is, the rising military power of China. China is engaged
in a comprehensive effort to profoundly improve its ability to project
naval power and to develop a comprehensive anti-access capability in
order to prevent the American military from having access into the
western Pacific.
I am not saying that China is going to become, or need become, an
enemy of the United States. I am saying that China is rising as a world
power. It is very deliberately, according to plan, increasing in
particular its naval strength. If we are to deter some kind of
aggression or conflict, we need to be strong--not provocative, but we
need to be strong in response. We did not anticipate, 5 or 6 years ago,
that they would grow so strong so quickly.
Their most significant advances are in submarines. China will take
delivery of 11 submarines in 2005. We are going to buy one. Its fleet
includes an increasing number of the following vessels: the Type 93
nuclear-powered attack submarine; Type 94 nuclear-powered ballistic
missile submarine, which carries an ICBM with a range of more than
5,000 miles; and Russian-built ``Kilo"-class diesel electric attack
submarines.
By the year 2010, they may be able to deploy a fleet of up to 50
modern submarines to confront us, should they choose to do so.
Remember, they can concentrate that power in the Western Pacific.
Among China's surface combat vessels, the most notable is the growing
number of Russian-built missile destroyers which carry the SS-22
``Sunburn'' anti-ship missile, and the Type 72 large amphibious assault
ship. In addition, China is developing and producing its own advanced
fighter aircraft. It is procuring hundreds of advanced Russian-built
Sukhoi fighters. China has deployed over 700 land-attack ballistic
missiles opposite Taiwan. It is adding over 100 new missiles each year.
I could go on for a considerable period of time. The upshot of that
is, by the end of the decade, China may be able to field, as I said
before, 50 submarines, all concentrated in the Western Pacific. They
are closing the technology gap and working steadily to develop an area
denial capability which is aimed directly at American strength.
I am not saying they are going to use it. I do believe strongly that
the more they believe we are going to be prepared and ready, the more
likely they will be to seek peaceful redress of whatever concerns they
may have, the more likely it is we are going to be able to avoid
developing a confrontational relationship with them.
For all these reasons, we have not completed the task of redressing
procurement shortfalls from the 1990s. We need 160 aircraft per year to
keep the average age in the inventory stable. Instead, we are
purchasing 80 aircraft. The current plan is to purchase less than one-
half the number of new F/A-22s the Air Force says it needs. This is the
superior air-to-air fighter. The Navy is at 283 ships, and that number
is going down. We purchased an average of 5.6 ships per year over the
past 10 years. You assume a 30-year service life. At that rate, it is
eventually going to give us a fleet of 170 ships.
The last time the Department of Defense estimated the number of ships
we needed to be secure, it was 375. I expect that a reasonable
Quadrennial Defense Review, looking at this, will produce a number no
lower than 300. We are not purchasing ships at anywhere near the rate
we have to in order to sustain the Navy at that level. At that rate,
our submarine force will drop below 40 in the next decade. Every recent
study identifies the need for 55 to 76 submarines at a minimum. We need
to get the shipbuilding budget up, and estimates range from $14 billion
to $18 billion a year to maintain a Navy at approximately 300 ships. We
are not there yet.
Now, additional reductions are being proposed. Those reductions, if
implemented, will mean the defense budget again will not grow, at least
in real terms. Most of the Department's budget is basically committed.
You cannot short operations and maintenance. You cannot short
readiness. You must pay your people. You must provide the benefits you
have committed to provide. That means any budget cuts must come almost
entirely out of exactly the platforms, the ships and planes and tanks
and vehicles that we have been designing and developing to provide the
new generation of capabilities that our men and women need to be able
to defend us.
So proposals are afoot and rumors are out that the Army is going to
cancel the Future Combat System. That is the Army's system to replace
the older tanks, the Bradley fighting vehicles, to make sure the
technology is adequate, the information technology is networked
together. FCS is the system designed to give us the most modern ground
combat capabilities. All of this
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is potentially on the chopping block. The next generation destroyer,
the DD(X), may not get built. That is the ship that is going to provide
naval surface fire to support troops going ashore. The Joint Strike
Fighter, our stealthy air-to-ground strike fighter, which we have been
developing for years, is on the chopping block. The new tanker is
imperiled. The need for additional airlift is imperiled. This situation
is serious.
What do we need to do? The Department is engaged right now
in a Quadrennial Defense Review. Every 4 years the Department
looks at its needs and is supposed to analyze what it needs
to defend us and analyze that in terms of military needs, not
fiscal constraints. In other words, the way the law reads,
they look at what structure of forces, what package of
capabilities they need to defend the United States, and then
we try to come up with the money to pay for that.
Well, I am concerned that the analysis may be the other way around.
They may be given a figure, a budget number, and told to come up with a
force structure and a package of capabilities that meet that budget
number. They must be allowed to assume reasonable inflation-adjusted
increases in the defense budget for the future and then be allowed to
build the package of capabilities and force structure needed to defend
the United States.
That Quadrennial Defense Review needs to be military driven, not
budget driven. Then, in the meantime, while we wait for that review, we
should stick with the planned figure for fiscal 2007. Every year, the
Department sends its budget here. And, of course, the key number is the
number for the upcoming fiscal year, but it is always a 5-year defense
plan. In the first few years of the Bush administration, to the credit
of the Department and the administration, they have basically stuck to
their projections year by year, with fairly minor deviations.
The figure for fiscal 2007 that we were given last year is $443
billion, and that is the figure that should come over. We should not
sacrifice our defense requirements for deficit concerns. Whatever your
feelings about the deficit and about how we ought to resolve the
deficit, it is not caused by the defense budget.
The defense budget is 48 percent of discretionary spending. It was
just about the same in the Carter era. The defense budget as a
percentage of the total budget is 17 percent, which is 6 percent less
than it was in the Carter era. As a percentage of gross domestic
product, it is 3.6 percent which, again, is less than it was in the
Carter era. The military budget has not caused the deficit that we are
dealing with today. In fact, if we could just sustain defense spending
at 4 percent of the gross domestic product, which would be an historic
low, that would be more than adequate for us to build the kind of force
structure that we need to defend our country. That is not too big a
sacrifice to pay for this Nation's security.
I said at the beginning of my remarks that reducing the defense
budget in the name of reducing the deficit is a false economy. I ask
Senators to consider the world situation today. The stability of the
international order in the world depends on the reality and the
perception of American military power. The more stable the world is,
the more hospitable it is to freedom and to our interests, the faster
our economy will grow, and the more money we will have available, not
just for defense spending but, indeed, for all other obligations of the
Government. That is something President Reagan understood. When he
became President in 1981, he began building up America's defenses. He
had double-digit spending increases in the military budget. He knew
that was a key aspect of winning the Cold War. He got the attention of
the Soviets. After a few years, they decided it was not worth it to try
to compete with the United States in that arena. That was one of the
key factors that led to the fall of the Soviet Union. And the freedom
that resulted from that, the end of the isolation of Eastern Europe,
the opportunities that were unleashed on the world are one of the
reasons that we had unparalleled economic growth all throughout the
1990s, which then enabled us to balance the budget and eventually get
to a surplus.
If, as a result of budget-driven decisions, we reduce the defense
budget beneath what is minimally adequate, we create a sense of
instability in the world, a doubt about our resolution to maintain our
obligations and to protect our freedom. If that even minimally
increases the possibility of a confrontation somewhere in the world, it
will affect our economic opportunities and our economic growth far more
than anything we could possibly save by reducing the defense budget, to
put it on just as low and cold a level as possible. A strong defense,
the perception of American will and resolution is good for the economy.
It is necessary if we are going to grow as a country, create jobs, and
generate the kind of revenue that will allow us to address the deficit.
I offer a personal note on behalf of this issue. The men and women
who defend us in our military are the finest people who have ever
served in any military service at any time in the Nation's history.
They know the obligation that they are undertaking. They undertake it
willingly. Over Veterans Day, I attended a few rallies around Missouri.
I like to do that in commemoration of the men and women who have
served. I was in Lebanon, MO, and met a number of our service personnel
who were there. One of them was a recent enlistee in the National
Guard, a young man who was proud to wear his country's uniform, proud
at the prospect that he might be actively involved, as I am sure he
will be, in helping our Nation win the war against terror.
We had an opportunity to visit. He understood that in doing that, he
was doing something very important, very large. He was sacrificing, and
his sacrifice was a measure of the value he placed on the freedom of
his country and the security of his family.
Those young men and women in America's military will keep faith with
us. They are going to do what we ask and expect them to do to protect
us. We owe it to them, particularly in the Congress. We owe it to them,
to keep faith with them. They protect us. They count on us to protect
them, to do what we know is necessary to provide them with what they
need to do their jobs.
Let's live up to that. Let's have confidence that doing the right
thing, meeting our obligations with regard to the national defense, is
the best way to approach the future, both economically and as a matter
of foreign policy and as a matter of the Nation's security.
I yield the floor.
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