[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6624]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          ON NATIONAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon out of concern for 
the State of America's national security. I do not want to speak 
directly to the ongoing operations in Kosovo today, although I am 
deeply troubled by the enormous uncertainties that seem to be the 
consequence of a poorly planned policy. Instead, I want to address the 
consequences of Kosovo on the U.S. military presence worldwide. I 
believe we are facing a period of unacceptable risk.
  Our armed forces are spread across the globe, from South Korea to 
Latin America. We are engaged in areas that are clearly essential to 
American security and in areas that are clearly tangential to our 
security. We are engaged in what are essentially two air wars on two 
continents at the same time to which we are asking combat engineers to 
devote themselves to building roads and bridges. We are deterring 
invasion and we are garrisoning in support of peace agreements.
  What we must consider is whether we are doing too much and we spread 
too thin. Historically we have been warned of the dangers of ``imperial 
overstretch.'' Unfortunately, I have fears that we are reaching such a 
point today. I do not want to call for retrenchment or retreat, but we 
must ask if we have gone too far and if we have asked too much of the 
armed forces. If we have, it is the job of Congress and the 
administration to work together to identify solutions.
  In 1997, the Quadrennial Defense Review reaffirmed the requirement 
that the U.S. must be prepared to fight two nearly simultaneously major 
theater wars while also staying ready for lesser contingencies. I have 
argued in Congress that the available funding for the Department of 
Defense has been inadequate to meet those requirements.
  When the United States fought the 1991 Persian Gulf War, we had about 
3.2 million soldiers in the active and reserve components. Ten years 
later, today, we have 900,000 fewer men and women in uniform.

                              {time}  1645

  The Army, which has been tasked with the responsibility of 
maintaining the majority of our overseas presence, has seen its active 
duty end strength fall by some 40 percent since 1991. Today we maintain 
as a matter of national strategy 100,000 troops in Asia and another 
100,000 troops in Europe. We now have more than 20,000 personnel 
actively engaged in Operation Allied Force, and nearly 40,000 personnel 
are engaged in an astonishing 20 other operations around the world 
today, and the situation today varies only slightly from the breakneck 
operational pace since the Persian Gulf War. A recent Congressional 
Research Service report counts 28 different contingency operations from 
1991 until now at a cost of nearly $18 billion. The President has 
committed our resources to these operations.
  The Air Mobility Command Base in my hometown of Spokane at Fairchild 
is an example of this extraordinary intensive operational tempo. 
Fairchild is kept very busy supporting KC-135 aerial refueling tankers 
from 16 different locations around the world. Ninety-seven percent of 
the total crew force from the 92nd Airlift Wing is deployed today.
  We are trying to maintain this level of international presence with 
increasingly ancient equipment. The KC-135's based at Fairchild have an 
average age of 37 years. There is no planning for replacement largely 
because there are no funds available. The B-52s, which were also once 
based at Fairchild, are slightly older, yet the Air Force intends to 
keep them in the inventory until 2040. No replacement is in sight, 
another victim of dramatically smaller defense budgets. Despite the 
intensive operational pace, defense spending has fallen 30 percent from 
Fiscal Year 1991 levels and 40 percent from Fiscal Year 1985 levels.
  As we overcommit our forces to tangential operations around the 
globe, the risk increases. Troops deployed in Haiti cannot immediately 
support missions in Korea, and troops trained to keep the peace in 
Bosnia are not combat ready if they are called upon to defend Kuwait.
  A rubber band can only be stretched so far before it breaks, and I 
fear we are nearing that point. Mr. Milosevic called the Clinton 
administration's bluff in Kosovo, and 3 weeks ago American forces were 
pitched into a war we had not planned for and lacked the resources to 
immediately support. What would formerly have been considered a lesser 
contingency has now tied down a significant number of our conventional 
combat power.
  General Clark's recent request for reinforcements is for a total of 
800 planes in the region, tying up nearly seven combat air wings out of 
a total of 20 in Europe. Our most important assets are committed. We 
have heavily taxed our available airlift. It is all tied up with 
supporting our forces and the refugees in Kosovo. There is no carrier 
battle group providing coverage in Northeast Asia because of the need 
to support the Balkan mission. We have nearly expended all available 
air launched cruise missiles, and both the Air Force and the Navy have 
submitted emergency requests to replenish depleted stores.
  Now it looks like the President is going to be calling up the 
Reserves to support this mission, the first call-up since the Persian 
Gulf War. Can we sustain this pace? It is very questionable. We must 
fund it if we are going to sustain it.
  The services have presented the National Security Appropriations 
Subcommittee a list of unfunded requirements that amounts to over $7 
million a year, and these funds are needed just to meet the military's 
most critical needs, not considering any of the shortfalls that have 
emerged in the last few weeks. This is a serious situation and 
supplemental funding should include not just the costs of the 
operation, but also the critical funds that the military needs to step 
back from the brink to which it has been pushed. We must reverse 
continued deterioration of our Armed Forces.

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