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| April 23,1998 |
| April 23,1998 |
Pentagon Faces Uphill Battle in Efforts to Close Additional Bases
by Chris Hellman, Senior Research Analyst, Center for Defense Information
chellman@cdi.org
On April 2, 1998 the Pentagon released "The Report of the Department of Defense on Base Realignment and Closure," its latest attempt to convince Congress to approve additional rounds of military base closures.
In a prepared statement accompanying the report, Defense Secretary Cohen said, "Our need is clear and compelling. The Department of Defense has more base capacity than is required to meet the needs of our fighting forces. Eliminating this excess capacity will save the Department billions of dollars. These resources will help ensure that the Department can sustain our high state of readiness and provide our troops with modern weapons."
The Pentagon is calling for two additional rounds of base closures in 2001 and 2005. According to the report, the military currently has 23 percent excess base capacity. The Pentagon expects the closures already approved will produce savings of $25 billion through 2003 and $5.6 billion annually thereafter. The additional closures are forecast to save a further $21 billion from 2008-2015 and $3 billion in every successive year.
When Secretary Cohen first proposed additional base closures last year as part of the recommendations of the Quadrennial Defense Review, reaction from Congress was swift and negative. The responses by Representative Joel Hefley(R-CO), "Over my dead body," and Senator Pat Roberts, "What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?" were typical. The latest foray by the Pentagon has met with a similar response. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), a critic of the Clinton Administration’s closure policy, has made it clear that no further closures will occur until there is a new Administration in the White House.
Senator Inhofe, who chairs the Armed Services Readiness subcommittee, is among those who criticize the Administration for politicizing the base closure process. In 1995, the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission recommended closing McClellan Air Force Base in California and Kelly Air Force Base in Texas, two critical electoral states. The Clinton Administration overruled the Commission and Congress, keeping the bases open through a program known as "privatization in place." Under this plan the government and private sector contractors compete for work to be performed at the two facilities.
The BRAC system went a long way to de-politicizing the base closure process, but it would be naive to assume that politics have been completely eliminated from the equation. "Privatization in place" was clearly an election year ploy. Senator Inhofe has a political stake in the outcome also, for Oklahoma is home to Tinker Air Force Base, one of the service’s network of depot maintenance facilities. Tinker stood to gain considerably had McClellan and Kelly, also maintenance facilities, been closed.
Nor is Secretary Cohen immune from the politics of base closings.
Responding to questions about what the Pentagon might do should Congress continue to resist further closures, the Secretary threw down the gauntlet, replying that "I could recommend that we simply allow a deterioration in some of the facilities that would go without repairs. I could recommend that we simply start moving toward what might be called mothballing certain facilities." And even though he later acknowledged that these are not really "positive" alternatives, the message was a pointed onemembers of Congress better go along or the Pentagon can bleed facilities in their district.
Few question the need to close additional bases. Even Congressional critics of further closures tend to focus on process rather than whether surplus infrastructure exists. Yet while the various sides spar on the political field, it is the military, desperate to free up additional funds in the Pentagon budget for ongoing operations and weapons buys, and the American taxpayer who ultimately bear the burden of operating unneeded facilities.
"The Report of the Department of Defense on Base Realignment and Closure" is available on-line at http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/brac040298.pdf
The Russian Dilemma in the CIS
by Jared Feinberg, Scoville Fellow, Center for Defense Information
jfeinber@cdi.org
"Russkii Telegraf" reported on April 9th that the cost of Russian border guards stationed throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is becoming prohibitive and that their levels may have to decrease. Currently, there are approximately 100,000 Russian border guards deployed throughout the CIS, specifically on the borders of Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia.
Russia also has peacekeeping troops and military bases in other CIS states such as Georgia and Moldova. If Russia does not possess sufficient financial resources to maintain its force presence in the ‘near abroad’ it may have to reevaluate its currently inequitable relations with these states and thus its remaining military-security aspirations for the CIS organization.
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has attempted to use its armed forces, in many instances under the rubric of CIS peacekeeping missions, to maintain and reconstruct a unified security space within the area of the Soviet Union outside of the Baltics. Many states such as Armenia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan believe their external security is strengthened by the deployment of Russian border guards and other CIS forces along their external borders. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine, however, distrust Russia’s motives for supporting CIS military actions.
The military operations of the CIS are the most visible yet also the least important function for the future of the CIS as a regional organization. President Heider Aliyev of Azerbaijan supports the development of the CIS but also believes that Russia has complicated relations among CIS states by its military agreements and operations in the ‘near abroad.’ Aliyev is opposed to the Russian military bases in the other Caucasus states of Georgia and Armenia. He has also objected to and demanded the withdrawal of $1 billion in military aid and equipment that Russia provided to Armenia throughout the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. An August 1997 Russian-Armenian military agreement has further complicated Azerbaijan’s attitude towards the CIS organization.
Georgia also has been at odds with Russia over the past few years regarding the CIS and Russian peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia. On April 3rd, the Chairman of Georgia’s parliament, Zurab Zhvania, stated that there was no legal basis for the Russian military bases in Georgia. Zhvania’s statement was based upon the fact that a 1994 Russian-Georgian military agreement was never signed and has, in his opinion, no hope of Georgian parliamentary ratification. Georgian President Shevardnaze has also made statements that he would like to see the withdrawl of the CIS peacekeeping force and Russian troops from Abkhazia. Shevardnaze envisions a truly international peacekeeping force instead. Turkey and Ukraine have already volunteered troops for such a force.
Russia was also supposed to have withdrawn its 14th Army troops from the Transdniester region of Moldova according to an October 1994 Russian- Moldovian agreement. The Russian Duma, however, has refused to ratify this agreement as well as the Basic Treaty signed between the two states in 1990. The Russian Duma will not approve these troop withdrawals until it is satisfied that there is no longer a so-called security threat from the conflict in Transdniester. In addition to the 14th Russian Army there is a Russian peacekeeping force in Moldova.
Most recently, the Russian military experienced problems during a training mission in Tajikistan. On April 11th, a Sukhoi-25 fighter-bomber crashed killing the two pilots. Later that week on April 14th, six Russian servicemen were killed and 12 others injured when a missile inadvertently hit their armored personnel carrier.
Russian troops stationed abroad have experienced and continue to confront many legal, political, technical and now resource-related problems. Many CIS states feel that Russia has manipulated their ethnic conflicts in order to obtain military bases and the right to post border guards on their external borders. It is Russia’s overwhelming control of CIS military missions, as well as all CIS institutions, that has led many CIS states to discount the CIS’s, and hence Russia’s, effective unifying and stabilizing role within the space of the former-Soviet Union. In the absence of an effective regional mechanism several sub-regional organizations, such as the security-related Central Asian Union and the more economically-focused GUAM group of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, have been created.
In theory, support for a truly equitable and effective regional organization is high. On April 29th there will be a CIS summit in Moscow. Many member-states’ leaders believe that this summit is an opportunity to recreate an equitable relationship among its members, especially in the area of trade. If a new ‘social compact’ is not worked out at the CIS summit, the disdain for Russian military interference and the past inequities in Russia’s relations with the ‘near abroad’ will continue, likely to the fatal detriment of the CIS.
Since 1991, Russia has seen the CIS framework as the successor to the USSR, a means to maintain its empire. Each of the former Soviet states has viewed the role of and their role in the CIS differently over the past six years. All recognize, however, that the current relationship between themselves and Russia within the CIS framework has not been successful. Today, this dilemma must be rectified.
The Defense Jobs Myth
by Oscar Lurie, Senior Analyst, Center for Defense Information,
olurie@cdi.org
Ever since the Soviet threat vanished, the defense lobby has used the need to preserve jobs as justification for quarter trillion dollar annual defense budgets. Implicit in this argument is the proposition that defense contracts are a cure for unemployment. But is this proposition borne out by the facts?
The importance of defense contracts to a state’s economy can be measured by the ratio of the Defense Department contract awards it receives to the total of its factories’ shipments. According to the Pentagon and the U.S. Census Bureau this ratio for the country as a whole in 1996 was 3.6 percent.
There were 20 states where DoD awards exceeded the national ratio. But the Bureau of Labor Standards has shown that in 12 of these states unemployment in 1997 was worse than the national average. Clearly, in these states defense spending did not cure unemployment.
Virtually overnight in 1996, the Welfare Reform Act changed America’s jobs problem from finding work for experienced job hunters to creating useful work for untrained or semi-skilled workers. Congressional documents described the key feature of the new law: "For the first time ever, able- bodied welfare recipients will be required to work for their benefits. At least one person in every family must be working within two years after receiving welfare or lose benefits, and States are required to have at least half of their single-parent welfare recipients working by 2002."
But defense contract awards won’t help cure this jobs problem. Statistics put out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services show that in the same 20 states with high ratios of defense awards, 5.4% of women were on welfare (compared to 4.8% in the other states.) Obviously many welfare recipients would not quickly qualify for jobs paying much more than the $5.25 hourly minimum wage - $210 for a 40 hour week.
Contrast this with the average full-time weekly earnings of workers in the industries benefitting from defense contracts:
| Guided missiles | $996 |
| Electrical machinery | $736 |
| Aircraft | $887 |
| Ordnance | $696 |
| Computers | $849 |
| Metalworking machinery | $698 |
| Control instruments | $769 |
| Other machinery | $646 |
This table helps illuminate another aspect of America’s current jobs problem. The nation’s unemployment rate is now lower than it has been for more than two decades. The growth of the American economy has been sustained for over six years. But that growth is now being hampered by a shortage of skilled and properly educated workers, which frustrates employers from coast to coast..
There is a pool of highly skilled labor that could be tapped to reduce this problem. Developing, testing, and producing weapons in America’s defense laboratories and factories engages about two million workers most of them highly skilled. In 1998 these activities will drain $78 million from the U.S. Treasury.
CDI has demonstrated many times that the hyper-tech weapon systems the Pentagon wants and Congress is authorizing are not needed for America’s defense. It is time to file away the plans for these systems, and release the skilled workers who work on them to productive civilian employment where they are seriously needed. By doing so the impressive growth of the American economy can continue for more years, and the American people will have goods and services they can use and enjoy, rather than weapons that can only destroy.
Defense production as a jobs program is no longer needed (if it ever was). For low skilled workers defense contracts hold no hope. And for highly skilled workers defense contract awards misuse the talents which the civilian economy needs.
The West’s New Balkan Darling: Montenegro’s Milo Djukanovic
By Tomas Valasek, Research Analyst, Center for Defense Information,
tvalasek@cdi.org
While the eyes of the international community are on Kosovo a quiet shift is occurring in neighboring Montenegro. In January, this smaller of the two republics currently forming the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia elected a new president. Milo Djukanovic came to power by defeating an incumbent backed by the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. Since his victory, Djukanovic has presented himself to the world as a democratic, businessminded alternative to the militant federal president. While some dispute his democratic credentials, Djukanovic seems genuinely intent on reforming Yugoslavia. He vows to improve its living conditions and to integrate this ostracized Balkan country into the European community. Djukanovic’s policies conflict with Milosevic’s on a few important points:
The federal president has yet to prove he is capable of repairing Yugoslavia’s economy, nor is there any indication he intends to try. Recent government shuffles prove that Milosevic’s politics take precedence over economic concerns. In the last week of March, the nationalist Radical Party of Serbia, lead by Vojislav Seselj, joined the government. The Radical Party is everything its name promises - Seselj, now new Deputy Prime Minister, called the international community’s offer of mediation in Kosovo a "plan from hell for the breakup and destruction of Serbia and the Serbian people." With Seselj’s arrival, out went the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of economic reforms, Danko Djunic. He resigned on April 8, charging that top leaders blocked all his efforts. "I am a technocrat and an expert and do not think that I can contribute in any way," Djunic told Reuters.
Where will Djukanovic’s reforms lead? First, he needs to clear a hurdle in form of parliamentary elections in Montenegro on May 31. The president launched a new program, the "Strategic Initiative for the New Future of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" that provides a platform for his supporters to rally around. If he receives a mandate from voters of Montenegro he is expected to try to unite the often fractious Serbian opposition. If he succeeds, he would represent a formidable opponent to Milosevic.
Djukanovic says he is intent on democratizing the whole of Yugoslavia, rather than on separating Montenegro from Miloseviccontrolled Serbia. This opposition to secession of any kind stems from his belief in a prosperous united Europe as a solution to ethnic and religious problems. He may well find, however, that reforming all of Yugoslavia is beyond his means, and have to attempt to bring Montenegro into European structures alone. As the case of former Czechoslovakia proves, separation can accelerate the accession of one part of a former federation into the European Union. One cannot therefore exclude the possibility that Milosevic’s obstinance could lead to a final disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation.
Forgetting Arms Sales at the Summit of the Americas
By Rachel Stohl, Research Analyst,
rstohl@cdi.org
The Summit of the Americas held April 18-19 in Santiago Chile, focused on education and poverty eradication. Although these two issues are extremely important, especially when one considers the impact of the cessation of hostilities in countries that had been plagued by post Cold War violence, the Summit neglected to publically discuss crime or the looming debate on U.S. plans to lift it’s ban on arms transfers to Latin America. Improving education and reducing poverty are extremely important for fostering development and advances in Latin America. But, by not recognizing the impact of crime, violence and weapons on society, Summit participants were unable to deal with the serious security of regional states and the international community.
Weapons have had an irrefutable effect on Latin America since the end of the Cold War. The region has seen increased crime and violence, and many "good people" have begun to arm themselves due to a lack of confidence in the judicial and security systems. A militarization of civil society has begun, and the presence of increased weapons in the region can only damage the fragile and somewhat tenuous peace that exists in many countries.
Last month, three former Presidents, Jimmy Carter of the United States, Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, and Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada of Bolivia urged the 34 leaders to address arms control at the summit. "It is wrong for Latin American governments to spend our scarce resources on the military to keep our huge armed forces which are not needed any more," said Arias. Arias further stressed the need "to choose between educating our children and buying these high-tech weapons. Especially in an impoverished region, the choice is clear."
Recognizing the varying degrees of weapons proliferation problems in the region, the three former Presidents emphasized that each county faces individual problems. For example, in the Caribbean and Central America, society is threatened by small arms and narcotics trafficking. In South America, the expensive, more sophisticated weapons already possessed, coupled with plans for additional weapons purchases, may increase the likelihood of armed confrontations.
Regional threats have motivated many to speak of the need to continue the U.S. ban on selling high tech weapons to Latin America and to embark on a two year moratorium on arms sales to the region. The three former Presidents, along with 27 leaders in the hemisphere, have already expressed their support for this two year waiting period.
It is essential that the U.S. support responsible arms trade policies in the Americas. However, other powerful constituencies such as defense contractors, see benefits in selling weapons to Latin America. But before giving in to the demands of the weapons producers and increasing arms sales to the region, the implications of these arms sales must be considered. When President Clinton and other leaders endorsed a moratorium on arms exports they wrote, "expenditures on expensive weapons systems diverts scarce foreign exchange from more effective instruments including education. They also compel neighbors to spend more on defense and, by doing so, generate international tensions." These negative externalities have not diminished and should not be overridden by economic concerns. The reasons for lifting the ban are not based on security, but rather on economics. The attitude that "if we don’t, someone else will" perpetuates the rationale that allows countries to purchase U.S. arms. The U.S. has been, and continues to be, the largest weapons supplier to Latin America. Supporting the arms moratorium will allow the regional states to address the issues of education and poverty eradication that the Summit recognized as crucial to the development of peace and security.
America's Defense Monitor: "Welfare for Weapons Dealers?"
This week, America's Defense Monitor takes a searching look at our government's support for weapons exports. Is it a vital contribution to American industry, or just welfare for weapons dealers?
Featured Speakers include William Hartung, author of "And Weapons for All," and Joel Johnson, Vice President of the Aerospace Industries Association.