The Center for Defense Information
Center for Defense Information
1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW * Washington, DC 20036
(202)332-0600 * Fax (202)462-4559 * www.cdi.org
| January 7, 1999 |
| January 7, 1999 |
Letter from the Director, Center for Defense Information
Senator (Ret.) Dale Bumpers
I am honored and excited about being the new Director of the Center for Defense Information. Admiral La Rocque has graciously consented to stay as Chairman of the Board and, of course, will be an invaluable source of information and guidance. And certainly I welcome your comments and suggestions.
We are now faced with proposals for a new "break-out" of military spending with very little back-up information as a justification. CDI faces a huge challenge. You are undoubtedly hearing terms such as "readiness," modernization," "shortfalls," etc. The details are not yet available, but as we begin to deplete our first budget surpluses (which are actually Social Security Trust Funds), we should be prepared to ask the tough questions such as "readiness for what," "modernization of which weapons," and "when are we to receive the Defense Spending Bonus we were promised so long ago?"
The Pentagon is not satisfied with $110 billion over the next six years, as proposed by President Clinton. They want much more, and key members of Congress want them to have it.
We will keep you informed as the Defense Budget numbers become available in more detail.
Administration to Seek Major Pentagon Spending Increase
Chris Hellman, Senior Research Analyst, chellman@cdi.org
In his radio address this past Saturday, President Clinton announced that he planned to add $12 billion to the Pentagon's budget next year and $110 billion more for the military over the next six years. After more than a decade of gradual reductions in military spending from the record high levels of the Reagan Era, the Pentagon is looking forward to its first major budget increase since the end of the Cold War.
The Administration's proposal comes as no real surprise. Last September the President first announced his willingness to reverse his previous opposition to increased Pentagon spending. At that time the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Congress they needed an additional $27.5 billion in Fiscal Year 2000 alone. Pentagon sources said that the Chiefs had urged the Administration to seek a total of $148 billion in additional spending over the six years of the Future Years Defense Plan.
According to a White House fact sheet, the additional funds will be used to improve military readiness, increase training, purchase additional spare parts, provide additional funds for weapons modernization, and improve military pay, retirement and benefits programs. Details of how the $12 billion would be distributed among these and other priorities are sketchy, but according to various media reports roughly $2.5 billion would be for pay and benefits, $2 billion to support the U.S. deployment to Bosnia, and the remaining $7.5 billion for procurement and readiness.
During a hearing on Monday, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned whether the proposed increase for FY'00 would be enough. In responding to the Committee, the Joint Chiefs said that "although [it] will not satisfy all [our] requirements...it will meet our most critical needs." The Committee's new Chairman, Senator John Warner (R-VA) has already stated that he will seek the $27.5 billion requested by the Chiefs last autumn. Committee members also questioned whether the Administration would make good on its pledge to provide similar levels of funding in the future.
Instead of arguing about "how much," our political leaders ought to be asking "Why?" While increased pay and benefits for our men and women in uniform and ensuring the readiness of our military forces are critical goals, the United States doesn't need to increase spending to achieve them. Furthermore, with no significant threats to our security and growing domestic needs such as education, environmental protection and law enforcement, it is more than fair to ask why the Administration and Congress are considering a return to a Cold War military.
The answer, of course, is politics. Elected officials know that they seldom lose votes by spending more on the military, but are leery of being portrayed as "soft" on defense. And the defense industry continues to successfully make the "jobs" argument with members of Congress who have large contractors or bases in their districts.
Yet neither the Administration nor the Pentagon would seek such an increase -- nor would Congress consider it -- except for the $73 billion surplus (from Social Security receipts folded into general revenues) the government ran last year and the even larger surplus expected this year.
The irony is, that by simply throwing money at the problem, without addressing the fundamental questions about how the military does its planning and sets its priorities, we are merely delaying the day of reckoning. Such issues as why the U.S. military and the aero-space industry are pressing for a $350 billion program to replace our current fleet of tactical fighter aircraft, already the best in the world, why the Pentagon continues to spend $25 billion each year preparing to fight a nuclear war, and why the United States continues to prepare to fight two major wars need to be examined. Unless we do, no amount of money will solve current problems in the military, and we will find ourselves ill-prepared to face the true challenges to our national security.
Preparations for NATO Membership Behind Schedule
Tomas Valasek, Research Analyst, tvalasek@cdi.org
Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic will not meet all military requirements set for them by NATO by April 1999, alliance officials confirm. The three countries are slated to become NATO members during the April summit in Washington, DC, perhaps even earlier in the year.
NATO identified three major areas of integration that, preferably, were to have been completed before admission: command and control interoperability, integration of the existing air defense systems into the NATO structure, and preparation of facilities in the three countries to receive NATO reinforcement units. But funding shortfalls and other reasons have forced delays in major projects beyond the April 1999 admissions date.
Alliance officials emphasized that the delays will not affect the formal accession date. NATO countries do not face any immediate threat that would necessitate urgent reinforcement of any of the three new members by U.S. or European forces. But the difficulties with integrating the first group of NATO invitees may affect the timing of any future expansion rounds. Should the full integration process for Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic be significantly longer and more costly than expected, the Allies will be more reluctant to invite other countries to join NATO.
In fact, the second round of expansion was expected to be announced at the Washington summit in April. It will most likely be delayed. At the December 1998 meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers, Canada's Lloyd Axworthy said that "it seems inevitable that there will be no consensus on inviting new members at the Washington summit...we will have to decide on another round of enlargement as early as 2001."
The military requirements were set jointly by NATO and the three countries chosen for membership. NATO conducted a intrusive review of the new members' military needs and agreed with them on specific tasks and timelines for completion. Although NATO officials have not revealed the extent of the delays, Polish newspapers report that their country has not yet fully completed any of the 17 goals set out by the alliance. Hungarian defense officials told the media that their country will only accomplish 60 percent of the tasks outlined by NATO prior to joining.
The military upgrades associated with NATO accession are partly funded through the NATO Security Investment Program (NSIP). The NSIP fund can be used for all projects which go "over and beyond" national defense requirements of the country. Projects slated for NSIP funding are prioritized by NATO according to the Alliance's needs and plans. While modernization of facilities in the three new member countries is not on the top of the list, it is high enough to ensure proper funding, NATO officials say.
Additional financing for military modernization projects must come from the national defense budgets of NATO members. The three new members spend less on the military, in proportion to their Gross Domestic Product (GDP), than most other NATO countries. Hungary and the Czech Republic promised to increase their military spending by 0.1 percent of GDP yearly until 2000 and 2001, respectively. These spending increases are proving politically unpopular in countries whose healthcare and social security systems still suffer from transition to a market economy. Alliance officials say that the new members will need to sustain higher levels of military spending even after the initial modernization is completed because of the scale of reorganization their armed forces require.
Center For Defense Information Finds Wars on the Increase
Colonel Daniel Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.), Chief of Research, dsmith@cdi.org
CDI's annual snapshot of major conflicts raging at the start of each year shows the number of such conflicts increased by two over the January 1998 total -- to 23 on January 1, 1999.
Two regions, Africa and Europe, registered renewed or new conflicts that pushed up this year's count. In Africa, pitched battles between the Angolan government and Jonas Savimbi's Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) shredded what was left of the 1994 Lusaka peace accord. Just to the north, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), the world suddenly seemed to be turned upside down again as Rwanda and Uganda lent support to rebels opposed to the government of Laurent Kabila. Kabila gained power largely because of large scale aid from Rwanda and Uganda, who now accuse him of allowing cross-border attacks by opponents of the Rwandan and Ugandan governments.
The fighting in the Kosovo region of the Yugoslav Republic, which only started in 1998, was sufficiently bloody to surge past the generally accepted figure of 1,000 casualties to be deemed a "major" conflict. However, this figure for the Kosova fighting does not include casualties among refugees who fled or were driven from their homes into the mountains.
The most deadly of the other major conflicts in CDI's survey are all civil wars, including those in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, and Sudan. Israel and Hamas and Hizbollah continue their struggle in southern Lebanon, and the long running struggle by the Kurds against Turkey, Iran, and Iraq seems destined to go on for some time.
The 70 hour U.S.-British assault on Iraq in late December and the continued exchanges with Iraqi surface-to-air missile sites are not included in the list of major conflicts because casualties were low. However, the U.S.-Iraqi situation is on a separate list of 19 flashpoints.
On the positive side, progress was made in resolving long standing conflicts. Perhaps most notable is the end of the 30 year Northern Ireland conflict. But it was nip-and-tuck over the summer as the Good Friday Peace Accord was almost sabotaged by the fire bomb that killed three children and the subsequent bomb planted by an IRA splinter group that killed 23.
Elsewhere, the Basque separatists (ETA) in Spain agreed to end their fight against the Spanish government. The Wye River Accord between Israel and Palestine provided some hope for moving the Dayton Agreement one step further, but further progress will probably be minimal until after the Israeli elections in the spring. Peru and Ecuador have resolved their border dispute, and while fighting still continues between insurgents and the government of Colombia, new peace talks are about to begin to try to resolve that nation's long-running conflicts.
For a full list of conflicts and flashpoints as of January 1, 1999, go to http://www.cdi.org/issues/World_at_War/wwar.htm
Breaking the Cycle of Violence: Lessons from Greek Literature
Colonel Daniel M. Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.), Chief of Research, dsmith@cdi.org
Once again happenstance has brought together two different human strands that say much about our world.
The first strand is the annual survey -- really a snapshot -- of the number of ongoing major conflicts in the world at the start of 1999. CDI's count lists 23 major wars. Most of which are internal, compared with 21 at the start of 1998 and another 19 flashpoints that could easily turn into wars.
The second strand, more random than the first, is the current production in New York City of "Electra," a play written some 2,400 years ago by the Greek tragedian Sophocles. The general story line is relatively straightforward: Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks in their war with Troy, sacrifices one of his daughters to the gods to ensure favorable winds for the Greek fleet. This angers his wife Clytemnestra who, with her lover, murders Agamemnon when he returns ten years later after the fall of Troy. This murder enrages Electra, the other daughter of Agamemnon, who revered her father. Eventually, with the aid of her brother, Electra wreaks vengeance on Clytemnestra and her lover. At the play's ending, the gods are deemed appeased, justice done, and thus, from the Greek perspective, universal balance restored.
But what is the outcome if there are no gods, only flesh and blood humans? "Justice" suddenly has no external reference point; it fails as a process of assessing responsibility for an act and measuring a discrete and appropriate remedy. Thus can begin the unending cycle of violence, of wrongs never forgotten, never forgiven, always revenged -- such as those that drive so many of the 23 conflicts raging today and the 19 flashpoints that could erupt at any time.
The drive for personal power is commonly cited as the cause for conflict. This undoubtedly is always present. But closer examination might point to the more primitive human motive that impels revenge for past atrocities, past deprivations, past omissions, actual or perceived. As mere humans in a non-repeatable "performance" in a real world, rarely are we able to achieve the emotionally neutral perspective usually attributed to the ancient gods. And lacking this neutrality, the cycle of action and reaction takes hold. Violence flares; justice is warped; killing and revenge killings reign.
And they will continue to reign and plunge nations into cycle upon cycle of war until we learn to forgive and forget.