PENTAGON BUDGET: DECISION TIME

It’s start­ing to hap­pen, finally. After years of giv­ing the Pentagon some­thing close to a blank check to fund wars, buy new arms, and back mas­sive upgrades to U.S. forces, the White House may be say­ing, at last, “enough.“
According to the Los Angeles Times, President Bush’s deputies are ask­ing for tens of bil­lions of dol­lars in cuts maybe as much as $60 bil­lion over the next six years. “The Air Force and Navy could be hit espe­cially hard, with each branch pos­si­bly los­ing $4 bil­lion to $5 bil­lion in 2006,” the paper says.
When he first got into office, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld faced a choice: fund the future, or pay for the past. He could put money into hulk­ing, weapons designed for a punch-​​out with the Soviet mil­i­tary. Or Rumsfeld could fun­nel the cash into defense “trans­for­ma­tion,” to make American forces quicker, better-​​networked, and more capa­ble (in the­ory) of fight­ing the small, nasty bat­tles of the new cen­tury.
Then came 9/​11. And sud­denly, Rummy didn’t have to make a choice at all. Questionable Cold War-​​era pro­grams, like the F/​A-​​22 jet, look on new life. Transformational projects, like the $117 bil­lion “Future Combat Systems” (FCS) ini­tia­tive, went full steam ahead. Strict spend­ing lim­its were junked, as America pre­pared to fight a new series of wars. What was a $310 bil­lion bud­get in fis­cal year 2001 is now slated to grow to $500 bil­lion, or more.
If Iraq had been con­quered quickly, Rummy might have been able to duck the choice between the future and the past indef­i­nitely. But the present has got­ten in the way. And as the sec­ond year of the con­flict begins to draw to a close, avoid­ing deci­sions in no longer pos­si­ble. Much of FCS is being rejig­gered, to give today’s troops tech­no­log­i­cal advan­tages. Controversial projects like the Virginia-​​class sub­marines, Osprey tilt-​​rotor crafts, and Joint Strategic Fighters are all get­ting new, harsher looks.
“The Iraqi insur­gents have man­aged to do what Don Rumsfeld in four years has not man­aged to do, which is bring about cut­backs in a lot of these Cold War-​​era weapons,” the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson told the Times.
THERE’S MORE: ” While the F-​​22 Raptor is impor­tant to the future, it is not some­thing that is needed to fight the Global War on Terrorism,” says Military​.com colum­nist H. Thomas Hayden.

December 20th, 2004 | Money Money Money | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.