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July
12, 2001 MEMORANDUM
TO: OPINION
LEADERS FROM:
WILLIAM KRISTOL & GARY SCHMITT SUBJECT: Defense We would like to draw
your attention to an extraordinary passage in Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz’s testimony yesterday before the House Budget Committee
on President Bush’s 2002 amended budget request for the Defense Department.
Wolfowitz points out
that in 1950, just prior to the Korean War, President Truman refused to
request from Congress the increase in miliary spending his defense team
thought was necessary. Today, we face a similar situation with the White
House and OMB slashing the Secretary of Defense’s and the military
services’ requests for increased defense expenditures. For example,
Secretary Rumsfeld came to the White House several weeks ago saying he
needed at least $35 billion as a supplement to the 2002 defense budget;
the White House authorized only half that amount. Right now, the Bush
White House is willing to hold defense spending below the total needed
because it values tax cuts more and fears cutting domestic spending further.
Moreover, with the president so lukewarm on fixing the shortfall in military
spending, it is virtually certain that the Defense Department will not
even get from Congress the additional $18 billion it has requested for
FY2002. In his testimony, Wolfowitz suggests a goal of setting defense spending at 3.5% of GDP. As he says, “To think we can’t afford an insurance policy of roughly 3.5% of GDP today to deter the adversaries of tomorrow and underpin our prosperity, and by extension, peace and stability around the globe, is simply wrong.” But this year’s budget request is barely 3% of GDP, and OMB is now telling the Defense Department not to expect any real increase for next year. So, the clear implication of the deputy secretary of defense’s testimony is that his president’s budget is woefully insufficient, and the White House is dangerously misguided, when it comes to providing for the nation’s security and its interests around the globe.
“I’m
reminded of another point in our history when it was a challenge to
make a case for increased defense spending. In 1950, General Omar Bradley
urged President Truman to spend at least $18 billion on defense. The
Joint Chiefs gave an even higher estimate at $23 billion, and the services'
estimate was higher still at $30 billion. But the President said we
couldn’t afford that much - $15 billion was as much as we could
afford. “Six
months later, we were suddenly in a war in Korea. Just as suddenly we
found we had no choice other than to budget some $48 billion—a
300 percent increase. How much better it would have been to have made
the investment earlier. If we had done so, Dean Acheson might not have
been forced to define Korea as being outside the defense perimeter of
the United States—on the grounds that we did not have the forces
to defend it. “We
have spent an historical average of about 8% of GDP on defense, in part
because we have not spent enough in peacetime to prepare for, and deter,
war. We can’t know who may challenge us in the future, or where,
or when. Today, we are more in the range of 3% of GDP. But it is reckless
to press our luck or gamble with our children's future. To think we
can’t afford an insurance policy of roughly 3.5% of GDP today to
deter the adversaries of tomorrow and underpin our prosperity, and by
extension, peace and stability around the globe, is simply wrong. When
compared with the cost in dollars and human lives if we fail to do so,
it is cheap at that price.
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