June 5, 2000

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: GARY SCHMITT

SUBJECT: Defense

In a front-page story (“Joint Chiefs Aim Big Budget Request at Next President”) in today’s Washington Post, Thomas Ricks and Robert Suro report that the military will be asking for $30 billion a year increase in defense spending over the next decade, beginning next year. This request is long overdue. As we have repeatedly pointed out, the current level of defense spending is simply inadequate for keeping U.S. forces equipped, trained, capable of carrying out the nation’s stated military strategy, and in a position to take advantage of the “revolution in military affairs.”

Ricks and Suro suggest that the military’s request for increased funds is “unprecedented” and “would require a massive shift of federal resources.” Neither point is accurate. The Reagan Administration military build-up of the early 1980s was as substantial and the Chiefs’ proposed increase amounts to little more than a 10 percent addition to current Pentagon funding. With a defense burden that is now below 3 percent of GDP and a surplus in federal revenues for this year close to $200 billion, this is hardly a back breaking proposal. As a measure of total federal spending, the increase would amount to less than 1.5 percent.

The increase being proposed by the Joint Chiefs is a good first step. Multiple studies over the past two years, both from within and outside of government, have found that the shortfall in Pentagon spending ranges from $40 to $100 billion annually. With too little resistance from Congress, the Clinton Administration has dug a hole for U.S. forces that will not be easy to get out of.

The traditional question of defense spending -- “How much is enough?”-- is impossible to answer absent a clear understanding of America’s role in the world. The Project will soon be issuing its analysis of U.S. defense requirements, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. This study will try to define the military forces, programs and resources needed to maintain American geo-political preeminence now and for the future, and we expect it to contribute to the necessary debate the Chiefs’ request should touch off.