Analysis, Context n°42 (November-December 2000) - The Battle of the 4%

The Battle of the 4%

Since July, various military leaders, or figures close to the military, have been demanding a considerable increase in the US Department of Defense (DoD) budget. Among them: Admiral Jay Johnson, outgoing Chief of Naval Operations (CNO); General James Jones, Marine Corps Chief of Staff; and former secretaries of defense James Schlesinger and Harold Brown. All of them are urging that the DoD budget (currently less than 3% of GNP) be raised to 4% of GNP. On the basis of economic forecasts, that percentage would raise the defense budget to $438 billion in 2002 and to $558 billion in 2007 (whereas current programming calls for $295 and $335 billion, respectively, for the two years in question). The most extraordinary aspect of these proposals is that they in no way call for a radical increase in the strength and resources of the armed forces, but simply for an adaptation of and for the adequate operation of the existing forces, at current levels -- personnel strength, cost of operations, maintenance, deployment, system modernizations, salary increases to stanch the flow of departures of specialized personnel, etc.

Those who are urging these increases are respectable citizens. There have, moreover, already been indications that the requirements of the military services, their weapon systems, their missions and their foreign commitments are expected to effectively necessitate very significant increases in the DoD budget. In 1999, two eminent experts, Daniel Gouré and James Ramney, had warned that it would be necessary to come up with an additional $100 billion in 2001 to maintain the armed forces fully operational for all their missions. Gouré-Ramney added that “there is a $376 billion deficit in the funding over the next five years to meet the Clinton Pentagon’s own modernization goals”. Two months ago, in September, the General Accounting Office (GAO), a body not known for “budgetary militarism”, issued a report in which it placed the amount of the additional funds required for 2001 at $50 billion.

It must be conceded: the American armed forces are suffering from serious structural weaknesses, caused primarily by an overextension of operational commitments (force deployments, which do not entail armed conflicts but which impose an extremely costly continuing effort, have increased immeasurably since the end of the Cold War). From this standpoint, some may consider that it is possible after all to accept the military’s argument that the cuts made in the Pentagon’s forces and budgets since the end of the Cold War are handicapping their forces in increasingly unacceptable ways vis-à-vis their assigned missions. For example, personnel strength has dropped from 2.2 million at the end of the eighties to 1.4 million today, while operational commitments continue at the same or greater levels (bases and installations in Italy, Arabia, Kuwait, etc.) and one-time or one-off commitments have risen at the rate we have seen.

The situation in this area is full of inherent contradictions. Alongside the arguments of the military, as distinguished an expert as Lawrence Korb (assistant secretary of defense for manpower and logistics during Reagan’s first term) is capable of developing a lengthy analysis in which he concludes that the current budget can easily be reduced by at least 20% ($62 billion off its current $290 billion level, according to Korb). Korb, now with the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, explains: “Since the end of the Cold War, the US military has continued its Cold War practice of rushing new generations of weapon systems into production to stay ahead of its putative rival. But, since the collapse of the Soviet Union there is no competing superpower, and in the other areas of military capability, the US is in an arms race with itself.” What common denominator can be found between Korb’s $230 billion and the $435 billion of General Jones or of Schlesinger for FY 2002?

These Demands for Extraordinary Increases Are Not Unfounded

To understand this debate and the extraordinary disparities which characterize the arguments on both sides, it is not possible to limit the inquiry to a simple accounting analysis or to the technical pros and cons concerning force capabilities and structures. It is necessary to raise the analysis to a different level, one which addresses the employment of America’s armed forces. It is in fact the case that budgetary requirements seem to vary considerably with such employment. The best example is the DoD procurement budget for advanced weapon systems. It is generally to these costly purchases that responsibility for the increase in Pentagon budgets is ascribed. But that item accounts for only one-sixth of the entire budget for the three services -- approximately $40-$55 billion for a budget which has risen from approximately $260 billion to $300 billion for the 1998-2000 period.

In the nineties, the operation, support and maintenance of the forces assumed a place of ever greater importance. Constantly rising materiel maintenance costs; the logistics of long-range missions; the top-priority “Force Protection” mission -- all of these factors contribute exponentially to the increase in costs and explain how a force two-thirds the size of the one deployed during the Cold War, is generally as expensive to operate and maintain.

This changed situation is accounted for primarily through the evolution of the missions assigned to US forces. It is the missions that determine the structure of the forces; such forces require a specific support for their operation and that support has become a decisive factor since it ensures the mainstay of the force protection mission which it must provide throughout the broader operational mission. An independent American analyst observes that “the general concept of force protection leads to an exponential increase in costs, as the force protection mission increases and on the basis of the geographic extension of the force projection mission.” The projection of forces is a decisive factor in determining costs because of all the operations which it entails and because of the requirements of the force protection doctrine. The forces were much less costly during the Cold War since the forces were much less projected because of the general geopolitical situation, with permanent installations and standing forces. For example, during the Cold War, there were nearly 320,000 troops permanently stationed in Europe, versus less than 100,000 today. But today, these 100,000 troops, with all their gear, are moved around considerably, since there are units stationed in Germany, as well as in Bosnia as part of SFOR and in Kosovo as part of KFOR. The expert already cited estimates that the operating costs for the 100,000 troops, and for everything they do, for all their activities and all their missions, are higher today than were the operating costs for the almost 320,000 GI’s stationed in Europe yesterday.

In other words, it is the very form of the structure and of the movement of forces; it is the mission; and beyond that, it is the policy which determines that mission, which constitute the heart of the problem. And therein lies the rub.

How The Issue of 4% of GNP Can Impinge Directly on the Issue of Hegemony

It is therefore at this point in the reasoning that there emerges a new possibility, which is clearly political. It is the possibility that the debate on the Pentagon budget and on the cost of America’s armed forces may spill over onto the larger issue of United States policy. What policy? A hegemonic, imperialist policy. When the military seeks 4% of GNP for the armed forces, it is their way of saying with figures: You want an imperial army to carry out your hegemonic, imperialist policy? In that case, you must be prepared to pay for it. We lay responsibility for the hegemonic policy in the lap of the civil authority since it is clear to us that this has been the case with the Clinton Administration as from mid-1995 and the intervention in Bosnia, and since the military are more than reluctant and ill at ease in the face of this global mission which demands enormous resources.

It seems very difficult, in media terms and in terms of image, to gain acceptance by public opinion for such an increase. According to our independent expert: “It is less a question of available funds, since the current surplus allows such expenditures, than a question of perception. It is possible to add $5 billion or $10 billion, even $15 billion, annually to the DoD budget without drawing too much attention. But $50 billion or $100 billion, no; the amount is just too great; the issue of military expenditure then risks becoming a national debate.” Other experts are even more incisive and really see in a decision for an increase of this importance a destabilizing political event. According to Franklin Spinney, a tactical analyst in the DoD program analysis and evaluation directorate: “The 4 percent defense solution, if implemented in this decade, would be tantamount to a declaration of total war on Social Security and Medicare in the coming decade.” In that event, it is the entire political base of the president himself and/or of the Congress which would come under threat.

It is difficult to see how under these circumstances -- caught between increases deemed necessary to maintain current levels and the fear that such increases may lead to a destabilizing public debate -- it will be possible to avoid a different debate. Debating such increases, with no assurance of finding an answer which can muster a consensus, means that at some juncture the debate will be shifted from “How does one gain acceptance for the expenditures required to maintain such forces?” to one of “Why maintain such forces?”. What are the threats which justify those forces? And even beyond that, the ultimate questions, since the intermediate answer will necessarily be that the cause of all of that is the hegemonic, imperialist policy: Why continue to pursue such a policy? What is the point of the policy? Is the policy itself in the national interest? It is a debate which Washington has avoided for over a decade, fearing that if the true terms are known, the fragile consensus supporting the internationalist policy of hegemony may crumble. If such a debate does in fact take place, new -- even revolutionary -- prospects will emerge in American policy.