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| ISSUE #14 | October 16,1997 |
| ISSUE #14 | October 16,1997 |
Landmines, Friendly Fire, and Flechettes
by Colonel Daniel M. Smith, USA (Ret.), Associate Director, dsmith@cdi.org
In their dogged resistance to the treaty banning the use of antipersonnel landmines, President Clinton and the Pentagon say they are "protecting the sons and daughters of American mothers" by keeping the use of these weapons as an option.
Hogwash. Not only is this an outrageous attempt to play on the ever-present fears of those whose offspring choose a respected, if dangerous, profession, it ignores the real fear, the real truth that landmines are quite capable of killing anyone of any nationality--even those responsible for laying the mines. As Bobby Muller of the Vietnam Veterans of America points out, landmines--often laid by Americans--were the leading cause of U.S. casualties during that war.
But one need not go back 25 years to understand that mines are nation-neutral. A virtual example of the truth of this statement occurred in March of this year. It's "virtual" because it happened in the Army's Advanced Warfighting Exercise (AWE) at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California. Military referees evaluating the war games ruled that 82 soldiers "died" from incidents of friendly fire. Of these, 45 "deaths" were attributed to landmines. Twenty-three "casualties" occurred in a single incident when a unit drove over an area in which landmines had been seeded from the air using a system named "Volcano."
This is one of the systems that the Army insists it must have to "protect" American soldiers. Volcano, which can be delivered by helicopters, mixes antipersonnel and antitank landmines--960 in all.
Of course, one must remember that the U.S. military says it does not use antipersonnel landmines any more. In what might be termed "virtual language," the Pentagon, in rebutting calls to join the Ottawa Process to ban the use of these landmines, claims it only uses "anti- tampering munitions" to prevent enemy soldiers from removing antitank landmines (which are not banned by the treaty).
Earlier this year in Oslo, Administration negotiators trying to obtain concessions to the treaty banning landmines echoed the position of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that landmines are vital to the defense of South Korea against the North and for protecting Kuwait against Iraq. Yet General James Hollingsworth, who 25 years ago designed the defense system for South Korea, now believes that mines would not be a significant element in stopping an attack because they are susceptible to artillery, fuel-air explosives, and other breaching techniques.
Although the Pentagon faces a one year moratorium (starting February 1999) on deploying landmines, the Administration has allowed it until 2006 to come up with alternatives to antipersonnel landmines in Korea. In what might be seen as a first step in finding an alternative (although denied by the Pentagon), the Army will test an Israeli version of the original U.S. "Beehive" round adapted for the 120mm cannon on the M1-A1/A2 tank. (Many will remember this U.S. development from the Vietnam era.) The round's name is appropo, for it consists of a canister containing hundreds of inch-long, nail-like "flechettes" that can tear bodies to pieces. If the Army is satisfied with the test, they reportedly plan to request funds for up to 5,000 rounds to be sent to Korea.
Will our troops be any safer from friendly-fired flechettes than from landmines? Presumably yes, as our soldiers should not be in front of tanks firing these rounds. But then, in the AWE at Fort Irwin, "friendly" Javelin anti-tank missiles "killed" 15 soldiers and destroyed 4 tanks. Nor should we forget that soldiers really died in the Persian Gulf War from ground-based friendly fire.
In the fog of war, real or virtual, losses to friendly fire are perhaps inevitable. But at a minimum we should objectively evaluate the utility and the liabilities of specific weapons so that, once fighting ends, so too, does all the killing.
President Clinton Spares Pentagon Pork
by Chris Hellman, Senior Research Analyst, chellman@cdi.org
In the past two weeks President Clinton signed into law two Pentagon funding bills and used his new line item veto to strike out individual programs in each bill. While the deletions have elicited criticism from members of both political parties in Congress--which gave the President this unprecedented power last year as part of efforts to balance the federal budget--the savings realized by the specific cuts are insignificant.
The first opportunity to use the line item veto was on the Military Construction Appropriations Act which funds construction of military bases, infrastructure and housing. On October 6, President Clinton announced he was eliminating funding for 38 programs totaling $287 million, or just over 3% of the total $9.2 billion in the Act. But compared to the number of unrequested programs in the legislation that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) identified earlier this year, the President's axe was used sparingly. In a letter to the President, Senator McCain, a member of the Armed Services Committee, listed 129 unrequested programs worth $941 million which he believed should have been considered for elimination.
Then, just this week, the Administration announced the list of programs it planned to strike from the Pentagon's main funding package, the $247.7 billion Defense Appropriations Act. Although the Administration had indicated that it was considering as much as $1.2 billion in cuts, the final list contained just 13 programs totaling $144 million, less than 0.06 percent of the bill's total funding.
Several weeks ago the Center for Defense Information identified dozens of programs in the Defense Appropriations Bill, worth over $1.3 billion, that had not been part of the Pentagon's budget request but had been added by the House or Senate. CDI also identified over $175 million for programs that not only were not requested by the Pentagon but were not even included in either the House or Senate's versions of the legislation. These latter programs were quietly added at the eleventh hour by House and Senate members of the conference committee as it worked out differences between the respective bills.
In all, lawmakers added 750 programs to the Defense Appropriations bill. While many would likely have appeared in future Pentagon budget requests, it is hard to see how some had any relation to U.S. national security.
For instance, the Pentagon spending bill included a $250,000 add-on inserted by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), a member of Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Ostensibly, this provision was to support the U.S. shipbuilding industry. What it did was give a 30-year monopoly over the cruise ship business in Hawaii to American Classic Voyages, which in turn must buy two American-built cruise ships.
Maybe the Senator thought American Classic would rent the cruise ships to the Pentagon to move troops the next time we have a war.
For additional information on unrequested funds included in the DoD FY1998 Appropriations Act, see CDI's "Weekly Defense Monitor" of October 2, 1997 at: http://www.cdi.org/weekly/Issues12
For information on the items eliminated by President Clinton, see the October 14, 1997 White House Press Briefing at: http://library.whitehouse.gov/Briefings.cgi?date=1&briefing=1
Trouble on NATO's Southern Flank Once Again
by Andrew Koch, Senior Research Analyst, akoch@cdi.org
Tensions between NATO partners Greece and Turkey are once again on the rise over the issue of Cyprus. The two rivals are at odds following repeated overflights of the island by both Greek and Turkish fighter planes, the first time such encounters have occurred near Cyprus.
Turkish press reports said that Turkish F-16 fighter jets carrying live ammunition overflew the island on October 14. Such overflights, which violate an agreement both sides made with the U.S. last year, are a blow to U.S.-led efforts to mediate an end to the conflict in that troubled region. Turkey claimed the overflights were in retaliation for Greece's participation in Greek Cypriot military maneuvers.
Greece, which responded by placing its military on full alert, has also complained that Turkish fighters violated Cypriot airspace twice during the last week and harassed a plane in which Greek Defense Minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos was traveling.
Cyprus is one of the most heavily militarized regions of the world, with nearly 35,000 Turkish troops stationed on the northern third of the island they have occupied since Turkey's 1974 invasion. Greece supports the opposing 12,500 Greek Cypriot National Guard forces, providing officers and naval and air assets as part of a mutual defense pact. Both the Greek and Turkish sides have taken steps in the past few years to bolster their military forces, importing large amounts of heavy weapons. This trend continues.
Last year, Greece and Turkey nearly came to blows over several tiny, uninhabited islands in the Aegean. Tensions rose even further after the Greek Cypriot government announced that it had bought from Russia sophisticated S-300 air defense missiles which could be used to stop the Turkish overflights. In turn, Turkey said that it will take whatever steps are necessary, including the use of force, to keep the S-300s from being deployed. Meanwhile, Greece has reiterated that an attack on Nicosia would be tantamount to an attack on Greece and would trigger a war.
Base Closings
by Colonel Daniel M. Smith, USA (Ret.), Associate Director, dsmith@cdi.org
In its May 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon said it would not be able to find the $60 billion it claims it needs annually to modernize the force unless two major changes are authorized by Congress.
The first is to scuttle the current "60-40" rule under which 60% of all maintenance of military equipment must be performed in government facilities. This, of course, is a red flag for Congress because many in both chambers use their ability to steer defense work into their states and districts to appeal to constituents for votes and to corporations for PAC money.
The second major change the Pentagon wants Congress to make is to authorize two more base closing rounds. The Pentagon points out that force structure has declined by 36% since the end of the Cold War but infrastructure by only 22%. In September Defense Secretary William Cohen said that DoD's excess infrastructure was still 15-16%. Other Defense officials claim that additional base closings would yield $2.7 billion in annual savings in addition to the annual $5.6 billion expected from earlier closings.
Throughout the FY1998 Defense budget hearings, DoD consistently pressed for authority to initiate the BRAC process. On May 29, in a press conference in Los Angeles, Secretary Cohen said:
"if they [Congress] do not wish to have BRAC proceedings, then they must also accept the consequences that there will not be sufficient resources over the long term to put into the kind of modernization that we have to achieve. So when I start presenting budgets in the coming years...they'll say...you are still way out into the future as far as the ability to modernize. I'll say, that's right, but I haven't had the ability to take the money, the savings, that we would otherwise achieve in this process and put it into modernization."
When the dust settled on the DoD appropriations bill, Congress refused to authorize a new base closing commission. Said one senator of DoD's request: "over my dead body," while another chimed in, "What part of 'No' don't you understand?" In its wisdom, Congress decided to take the classic route of ordering yet another study on the costs and benefits of base closings-- at additional cost to taxpayers.
However, five months after the QDR, there seems to be a sea change--in the Pentagon, not Congress. John Hamre, the new Deputy Secretary of Defense, now says that the Pentagon will have a better chance of reaching its $60 billion a year modernization goal if bases are not closed.
Confused? It's simple. If bases aren't closed, the military won't have to pay short term environmental cleanup and other costs of turning bases over to local communities. Of course, in the meantime, taxpayers are shelling out $2.7 billion annually for unneeded bases and communities are denied the opportunity to attract new industries and better paying jobs.
Such short term thinking lacks any vision and all sense. If this is an example of the new Pentagon thinking for the new millennium, it looks like we are in for more of the same old 20th century Pentagon waste and mismanagement.
This week on America's Defense Monitor -- $67 Billion Under the Sea
It's called the New Attack Submarine...
It's possibly the single most controversial topic to surface between the Congress and the Navy in recent years.
At issue is a plan to buy 30 multi-billion dollar nuclear attack submarines. The Navy says it needs the new subs to modernize its fleet.
Two shipyards say they need the construction of the new subs to keep their companies afloat.
And critics want to torpedo the plan to build new subs, which they allege is ill conceived and could end up wasting billions of taxpayers dollars. At stake is the shape the U.S. submarine force for the 21st Century. Will the U.S. Navy sink $65 Billion under the sea?
Featured on the program are Norman Polmar, author and contributing columnist for the Naval Institute's Proceedings, John Donnelly, reporter for Defense Week, Kay Van Der Horst, submarine issues analyst, and Ivan Eland, Director of Defense Policy Studies at the CATO Institute.