HELLMAN: The first question is please describe briefly the Pentagon's current "two major war" requirement and then go into the part about whether there's a mismatch of funding.

ELAND: Well, the Pentagon currently has a requirement to fight two Major Theater Wars nearly simultaneously.  And what that means is they have give two examples of the Persian Gulf and also an attack of North Korea on South Korea. And there probably isn't enough resources in the Defense Department to conduct this type of a strategy; that is to say there's a mismatch between the resources and the strategy itself.  I think a lot of people would agree with that.  Some people want to cut strategy down, and other people want to increase the resources.  I would be in favor of reducing the strategy.

I think that the National Defense Panel, an independent panel of retired military and civilians, has questioned the strategy, and they said that it may just be a force protection mechanism.  That is, the way to justify the current force structure, which I believe is the case.  The National Defense University has also said that the strategy, the two war strategy, is less important now than it was, planning for two wars.  So I would be in favor of reducing the strategy, especially after the Cold War is over.  We don't really need to fight two wars at the same time.  I don't think it's in our strategic interest that it would require that.

HELLMAN: Do you want to elaborate briefly on what the NDP's statement about the strategy's being less significant, where that came from, what was it the result of, what are their feelings about the international climate?

ELAND: Well, the NDP examined both of the regional scenarios and found that there was less of a threat, that is the threat was diminishing in both theaters.  First of all, the North Koreans are short of food and fuel and it would be very hard for them to conduct an effective invasion of the South, simply because their people are starving.  That's one thing.  Many people think the regime is going to implode.  And also, that was also mentioned in the NDP's report, that this scenario might go away.

As far as the other scenario, the Persian Gulf, that was, the NDP had said that that was a scenario in which the threat was declining because of the economic sanctions, arms embargo, Saddam is unable to sell his oil to get revenues to rebuild his army after it was destroyed during the Gulf War.  So those are some of the reasons that the scenario was, are, that the NDP, er, excuse me, the NDP reached the conclusion that planning for two wars was less important now.

HELLMAN: Roughly, where do you think military spending levels oughtta be and how do we go about getting there?

ELAND: well, I think in the post-Cold War era, when we need to, uh, you know, take a look at what our vital interests are and scale back those areas where we do intervene. I think $135 billion would probably be enough to cover it, which is roughly about half, maybe a little over a half of the defense budget what we're currently spending now.  I think it could be dramatically reduced. 

I mean, if you, when you stop and think about it, we spend almost twice as much as all the threat or potential threat countries combined, and I would include Russia, China, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Cuba, and Syria in that.  And so, we spend almost twice as much as all those countries combined. 

We also spend almost 50% more than our NATO allies, and our NATO allies have the next-most-capable militaries in the world compared to the US.  So, I mean, we're vastly outspending everyone in the world, and it equates to about $1,000 per person per year on average for defense spending, so your average taxpayer is spending $1,000 per year on defense.

HELLMAN: You wanted to say something about some of the systems that we're currently looking at funding or funding that you think we could do without?

ELAND: Yeah, I think there's a lot of systems that are left over from the Cold War and they have a lot of industrial might behind them as far as industries lobbying the Pentagon to keep these weapons.  But we have an F-22 fighter, and yet we have complete air superiority.  We have the best fighter in the world, the F-15, already.  The Comanche Helicopter.

They're still producing the DDG-51 Destroyer, which is a really complex and deluxe ship which is left over from the Cold War.  And they're still talking about producing another Nimitz-class carrier before they move over to a more experimental carrier.  So they could cut that out of the budget as well, and that's about $5.4 billion for one ship.  Those are some of the procurements that I think could be eliminated.  They also do need to take the Secretary's recommendation and cut more bases, because the bases have only been cut 21%--the budget has been, er, the forces have been cut 36%.  I think we need to cut more bases as well. 

HELLMAN: Would you then say that, or to what would you attribute support in Congress, particularly among members of the Armed Services Committee, for rather than reducing spending, actually adding to the current budget.

ELAND: Well, I think there's a lot of parochial concerns.  Senators and Congressman have pet weapons systems programs in their particular district or state, and to keep that, they'll have to keep another on in someone else's state or district, you know, horse trading as far as that goes.  And so, what you have is a proliferation of, you know, systems that need to be funded, and so they'd like to add money rather than reduce money.  I mean you see the threat going one way and the spending going the other way because of the domestic interests.

HELLMAN: Anything you'd like to add?  Because I'm done here.

ELAND: I guess I already mentioned this but I'd like to just reiterate it. The fact that, um the US, um, no-one has ever really defined our vital interests. People use the term vital interests for Bosnia, vital interests for Somalia or whatever, or vital interests for these two scenarios, but no-one has ever stopped to think about what our vital interests really are.   And there's not a peer competitor or near-peer competitor coming along for 20 or 30 years.  I think most people would agree with that.  So, if we don't really need to be intervening in these areas, or if they're of less vital interest, why are planning for two wars to fight in two areas that are of questionable interest in the first place.

HELLMAN: That's it.  Great, thanks.