Chapter 21 Military Policy

The politics of the military are captured in movies about the military.
In Heartbreak Ridge the American invasion of Grenada is a skillful
maneuver by tough Marines led by sergeant -major Clint Eastwood.
But in Platoon land welfare is a bloody, confused, brutal experience
with angry men and incompetent leaders. In Top Gun Tom Cruise, a
sassy but superb naval aviator, flies a F-14 jet fighter with
extraordinary precision. But in Dr. Strangelove pilots are dolts led by
mindless generals and mad scientists.
The inconsistent images are matched by apparently
inconsistent facts: in 1985 most Americans applauded the beautifully
coordinated maneuver in which navy fighters forced down Egyptian
airliners carrying the terrorists who had hijacked a cruise ship; two
years earlier most Americans were enraged by stories that idiots in
the navy had paid $435 for a common hammer.
One view of the military holds that national defense is a vital
function of the federal government whose goals and means are
determined by debates about the international balance of power. As in
any large venture, there are honest mistakes, agonizing struggles, and
bureaucratic stupidities. This view sees defense policy making as an
example of majoritarian politics, often reinforced by deep feelings of
patriotism but sometimes fouled up by inevitable human error.
Another view is that defense policy making s nothing but a
gigantic boondoggle that exposes men and women to unnecessary
hazards to satisfy the demands of client groups and special interest or
to advance dubious national objectives that sometimes are merely a
cloak for the economic imperialism of multinational corporations.
In the first view, the benefits and costs of national defense are
widely distributed: everybody is protected, every taxpayer foots the
bill, and accordingly, the size and purpose of our military
establishment broadly reflects the realities of our international
situation and the shape of public opinion. Before World War II we
had a small standing army because there were no obvious threats to
our security and because public opinion was isolationist. Since that
time, according to this view, we have maintained a large military
establishment because our role in the world has grown and public
opinion has been concerned about the Soviet threat. We do not always
agree about military matters - the debate over the wisdom of our

intervention in Vietnam was bitter and lasting but at least we are

debating national purpose, not private advantage.
In the second view, the only real beneficiaries of military
spending are generals, admirals, big corporations, and members of
Congress whose districts get fat defense contracts. Everyone pays, but
only some well-placed clients benefit. The size of the defense budget
reflects the lobbying skills of Pentagon bureaucrats, not the realities of
any threat to the United States. Reductions in international tensions
and the U.S.-Soviet arms race were frustrated by the stake that the
military-industrial complex (the supposedly unified political bloc
consisting of the Defense Department and industries that bind military
weapons) had in large defense budgets. Adherents to this view of the
military argue that although we have seen cuts in defense spending
since the end of the cold war, the defense budget would be even lower
were it not for the continuing power of the military industrial
complex.
To understand what the people who hold these views are
arguing about, we must first examine the structure of defense decision
making and describe how the defense budget is determined. Then
well turn to the politics of billion dollar missiles and $435 hammers.
_____________________
The Structure of Defense Decision Making
The formal structure within which decisions about national defense are
made was in large part created after World War II, but it reflects
concerns that go back at least to the time of the Founding. Chief
among these is the persistent desire by citizens to ensure civilian
control over the military.
The National Security Act of 1947 and its subsequent
amendments created the Department of Defense (see Figure 21.1). It
is headed by the secretary of defense, under whom serve the
secretaries of the army, the air force, and the navy as well as the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. The secretary of defense, who must be a civilian
(though on former general, George C. Marshall, was allowed by
Congress to be the secretary), exercises, on behalf of the president,
command authority over the defense establishment. The secretary of
the army, the secretary of the navy, * and the secretary of the air force

also are civilians and are subordinate to the secretary of defense.

Unlike him, they do not attend cabinet meetings or sit on the national
Security Council. In essence, they manage the housekeeping
functions of the various armed services, under the general direction of
the secretary of defense and his deputy and assistant secretaries of
defense.
The secretary of the navy manages two services: the navy and
the Marine Corps.
The four armed services are separate entities; by law they cannot
be merged or
commanded by a single military officer, and each has the right to
communicate directly with Congress. There are two reasons for
having separate uniformed services functioning within a single
department: the fear of many citizens that a unified military force
might become too powerful politically, and the desire of each service
to preserve its traditional independence and autonomy. The result, of
course, is a good deal of interservice rivalry and bickering, but this is
precisely what Congress intended when it created the Department of
Defense. Rivalry and bickering, it was felt, would ensure that
Congress would receive the maximum amount of information about
military affairs and would enjoy the largest opportunity to affect
military decisions.
Interservice rivalry has provided just this kind of opportunity to
Congress. In 1948 the air force wanted to take over naval aviation; the
navy counterattacked by criticizing the effectiveness of air force
bombers and argued instead for building large aircraft carriers. When
the navy was refused permission to build the supercarriers that it had
in mind, several admirals resigned in protest. In the 1960s the navy
and air force argued again, this time over a new fighter aircraft (the
TFX), only one type of which was to be built. The air force wanted a
plane to fly over long distances and to carry nuclear weapons; the navy
wanted to take one off and land from aircraft carriers and to fly at high
speeds for short distances. The air force was seeking to enlarge the
role of manned aircraft as a part of our deterrent forces; the navy
wanted to preserve the role of the carrier as a strategic force.
Though disputes like these often employ the usual techniques
of bureaucratic infighting leaking information to the press,
mobilizing sympathetic members of Congress, hiring rival civilian

experts they are not merely infighting, for they focus attention on
major issues of defense policy.
Since the end of World War II Congress has aimed both to
retain a significant measure of control over the militarys decision
making and to ensure the adequacy of the nations defenses. Congress
does not want a single military command headed by an all-powerful
general or admiral, but neither does it want the services to be so
autonomous or their heads so equal that coordination and efficiency
suffer. In 1986 Congress passed and the president signed a defense
reorganization plan known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act, which
increased the power of the officers who coordinate the activities of the
different services. The 1947 structure was left in place, but with
revised procedures.
Joint Chiefs of Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is a committee
consisting of the uniformed head of each of the military services (the
army, navy, air force, and Marine Corps), plus a chairman and a
(nonvoting) vice chairman, also military officers, who are appointed
by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The JCS does not have
command authority over troops, but it plays a key role in national
defense planning. Before 1986 the JCS was a committee of equals.
Since each service had one vote, the JCS operated by consensus: it
rarely, if ever, made a decision opposed by any single service (and
thus it rarely made an important decision). Since 1986 the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs has been designated the presidents principal military
adviser, in an effort to give him more influence over the JCS. It
remains to be seen whether the JCS will be any better equipped to
make tough decisions under the new law than it was under the old.
Joint Staff
Assisting the JCS is the Joint Staff, consisting of
several hundred officers from each of the four services. The staff
draws up plans for various military contingencies. Before1986 each
staff member was loyal to the service whose uniform he or she wore.
As a result the staff was often joint in name only, since few
members were willing to take a position opposed by their service for
fear of being passed over for promotion. The 1986 law changed this in
two ways: First, it gave the chairman of the JCS control over the Joint
Staff; now it works for the chairman, not for the JCS as a group.
Second, it required the secretary of defense to establish guidelines to

ensure that officers assigned to Joint Staff (or to other interservice

bodies) were promoted at the same rate as officers whose careers were
spent entirely with their own services.
Unified Commands
Most of the combat forces of the United
States are assigned to one or another of eight unified commands or
two specified commands. Five of the unified commands control our
forces assigned to geographic areas Europe, the Pacific (including
the Far East and Southeast Asia), the Atlantic, Central America (called
the Southern Command), and the Middle East (called the Central
Command). Three handle specialized forces space and its defense,
transportation, and special operations (such as the army Rangers and
navy Seal Teams). The specified commands are responsible for
strategic missiles and bombers and for defense forces in the United
States. Before 1986 these commands were often unified in name only:
each service component (for example, the navy) would tend to take
orders from its own brass in Washington rather than from the
commander in chief (CINC) of the unified command. The 1986 law
gave more power to the CINCs. The Central Command in the Middle
East (CentCom) was in charge of our forces fighting against Iraq.
The Services
Each military service is headed by a civilian
secretary one for the army, the navy (including the Marine Corps),
and the air force plus a senior military officer: the chief of staff of
the army, the chief of naval operations, the commandant of the Marine
Corps, and the chief of staff of the air force. The civilian secretaries
are in charge of purchasing, auditing, congressional relations, and
public affairs. The military chiefs oversee the discipline and training
of their uniformed forces and in addition represent their services on the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Chain of Command
Under the Constitution the president is
commander in chief of the armed forces. The chain of command runs
from him to the secretary of defense (also a civilian), and from him to
the various unified and specified commands. These orders may be
transmitted through the Joint Chiefs of Staff or its chairman, but by
law the chairman of the JCS does not have command authority over
the combat forces. Civilians are in charge at the top to protect against
excessive concentration of power.

No one yet knows how well the 1986 changes will work,
though many analysts viewed the quick victory in the 1991 Persian
Gulf War as evidence of its success. Critics of the Pentagon have been
urging changes along these lines at least since1947. But others say
that unless the armed services are actually merged, interservice rivalry
will continue. Still others argue that even the degree coordination
intended by the 1986 act is excessive; the country, in their view, is
better served by having wholly autonomous services. What is striking
is that many members of Congress who once would have insisted on
the latter view voted for the 1986 law without question, thus indicating
a greater willingness to permit some degree of concentration of power
in the military.
_____________________________
The Defense Budget
There are two important things to know about the defense budget
how big it is and how it is divided up. The first reflects majoritarian
politics, the second interest group bargaining, with the interests in
this case being the military services and their allies in Congress.
Total Spending
Throughout most of our history, the United States has not maintained
large military forces during peacetime. For instance, the percentage of
gross national product (GNP) spent on defense in 1935, on the eve of
World War II, was about the same as it was in 1870, when we were on
the eve of nothing in particular. We armed when a war broke out, then
we disarmed when the war ended. But all of that changed after World
War II, when defense spending declined sharply but did not return to
its prewar levels. And in 1950 our defense expenditures soared again.
In that year we rearmed to fight a war in Korea, but when it
was over we did not completely disarm. The reason was our
containment policy toward the Soviet Union. For about forty years
from the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 to the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991- American military spending was driven by our
desire to contain the Soviet Union and its allies. The Soviet Union had
brought under its control most of Eastern Europe; would it also invade

Western Europe? Russia had always-wanted access to the oil and

warm water ports of the Middle East; would the Soviets someday
invade or subvert Iran or Turkey? The Soviet Union was willing to
help North Korea invade South Korea and North Vietnam to invade
South Vietnam; would it next use an ally to threaten the United States?
Soviet leaders supported wars of national liberation in Africa and
Latin America; would they succeed in turning more and more nations
against the United States?
To meet these threats the United States built up a military
system that was designed to repel a Soviet invasion of Western Europe
and at the same time help allies resist smaller scale invasions or
domestic uprisings. Figure 21.2 depicts the dramatic increase in
military spending in 1950. It also shows that even after we decided to
have a large military force, there were many ups and downs in the
actual level of spending. After the Korean War was over we spent
less; when we became involved with Vietnam we spent more; when
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan we spent more again. These
changes in spending tended to reflect changes in public opinion about
the defense budget (see Figure 21.3, page 638).
As Figure 21.3 shows, for the past thirty years the American
public generally has said that we spend too much on defense. With the
exception of the period from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, public
opinion has favored downward pressure on defense spending.
Typically that view shifts only when war or crisis occurs, such as
Korea, Sputnik, Berlin, Vietnam, or Afghanistan. But until around
1991, any decreases in military spending were limited by the
continuing fear of Soviet domination. For decades, America raised
and lowered its defense spending, but always with an eye on the ever
increasing Soviet military budget.
Then, suddenly, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. The troops
that once occupied Eastern Europe and Afghanistan withdrew to
Russia; there were huge cuts in Russian military spending; and
military and economic aid to its long time ally, Cuba, was
suspended. For the first time since 1950, American leaders were faced
with defining the principles of our military policy (and thus the size of
our defense budget) in the absence of a Soviet threat.
The debate that occurred, and is still continuing, largely
reflected personal beliefs and political ideologies (that is, majoritarian
politics). Liberals demanded sharp cuts in defense spending, weapons

procurement, and military personnel, arguing that with the Soviet

threat ended it was time to collect our peace dividend and divert
funds from the military to domestic social programs. Conservatives
agreed that some military cuts were in order, but they argued that the
world was still a dangerous place therefore that a strong (and well
funded) military remained essential to the nations defense. This
disagreement reflected different predictions about what the future
would be like. Many liberals (and some conservatives, such as Pat
Buchanan, who believed that America should stay at home) argued
that we could not afford to be the worlds policeman. Many
conservatives ( and some liberals) responded by saying that Russia
was still a military powerhouse that might once again fall under the
control of ruthless leaders and that many other nations hostile to the
United States (such as Libya, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq) were
becoming potential adversaries as they tried to build or acquire nuclear
weapons and missiles systems.
Saddam Hussein soon provided evidence that international
aggression had by no means ended with demise of the Soviet Union. In
1990 Iraq invaded and conquered Kuwait, a small oil producing
country in the Persian Gulf. President Bush, moving to protect our
allies in the Middle East (such as Saudi Arabia), sent U.S. forces to the
region. This effort was joined by forces from several other nations and
given the blessings of the United Nations. When the Iraqi forces
refused to withdraw from Kuwait, the United States and its allies
attacked, in January 1991. In short order to Iraqis forces were driven
out of Kuwait, with remarkably few allied casualties. Although
Saddam Hussein managed to salvage enough of his military forces to
remain in power in Iraq, the short lived war was viewed by most
Americans as an astounding military success.
Operation Desert Storm (as it was called) postponed the debate
over military spending but did not end it. The U.S. victory was not so
swift and stunning that it convinced many people that this country
could not be challenged by anyone. Some held that we could afford to
rely on smart weapons and other sophisticated military technology
and did not need a lot of men and women under arms. Some believed
we should not intervene in the affairs of other nations except, as in
Desert Storm, as a part of a United Nations effort that would provide
us with the support of many allies. Others argued that high technology
and smart weapons were desirable because they would make it easier

for the United States to intervene effectively in future conflicts, with or

without UN. Critics declared that smart weapons might work
brilliantly in fighting Iraq, but for other kinds of wars only ground
troops could win. They also argued that the U.S. could not let its
military and foreign policy be controlled by the United Nations, a body
of many diverse interests, in which the United States has only one
vote.
Not long after Desert Storm we sent troops to aid a UN
peacekeeping effort in Somalia, a country where millions of people
were starving because a civil war had disrupted the economy and
blocked the distribution of relief supplies sent from abroad. While this
was going on, the former nation of Yugoslavia collapsed into a civil
war marked by unspeakable atrocities perpetrated against innocent
civilians. Initially the United States was reluctant to get involved, but
it ultimately brokered a peace with the combatants in November 1995.
As President Clinton entered his second term, U.S. troops continued to
serve as a part of a NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia.
Just as important as the debate over U.S. involvement in these
world events was reality of how defense spending was allocated within
the overall federal budget. Defense spending is almost the only part of
the federal budget that can easily be cut by the president and Congress.
Presidents looking for money to reduce the deficit or to finance new
programs are irresistibly drawn to the defense budget. President Bush
had begun to make cuts in military spending following the breakup of
the Soviet Union. By 1993 the army had been reduced from eighteen
divisions to fourteen, the navy from 546 ships to 443; the air force
from 24 wings of fighter planes to 16. President Clinton sought to
make even deeper cuts. To do so he instructed his secretary of defense
to conduct a bottom up review of our defense needs. This review
concluded that the biggest threat now facing the United States arose
from the possibility of smaller, regional wars breaking out in various
parts of the world wars like the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The
secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that the United States
had to have a military force capable of fighting two regional wars at
the same time. The forces they proposed would even further reduce
the army (to 10 divisions), the navy (from 433 to 346 ships, including
12 aircraft carriers), and the air force (from 16 to 13 fighter wings).
Only the Marine Corps was spared deep cuts, on the theory that the
Marines are specially trained and equipped to intervene in remote parts

of the world (see Table 21.1). There were also to be cuts in the
number of new weapons purchased.
But making big cuts in new weapons carries a risk: if the cuts
are too deep, the companies with the ability to make these weapons
will go out of business. For example, there are only two American
companies capable of building modern submarines and only a few that
can build high performance combat aircraft. The Pentagon plan,
therefore, called for purchasing some submarines and aircraft that were
not strictly necessary in order to keep these production lines, and the
skilled workers employed by them, in existence. Furthermore, the
military services have been cutting back on procurement of current
weapons over the past few years so that they can save money for next
generation systems. The services are not buying as many new
weapons, but they have not lost interest in developing the very
newest ones. As we shall see, keeping a defense plan open is not
simply a question of defense policy; it also is a matter of interest group
and client politics.
By the beginning of President Clintons second term, many
members of Congress had shifted their attention to cutting domestic
programs in an effort to balance the budget by 2002. Still, with many
members concerned that our military spending is likely to go on for
many years.
Allocating Defense Dollars
Presidents may set total military spending, within limits, but they have
a much harder time changing the allocation of funds among the
various services. If majoritarian politics governs the first decision,
interest group politics shapes the second.
In the United States - and probably in every nation the army,
the navy, the Marine Corps, and the air force can each mobilize
important political allies if threatened with a loss of resources relative
to the other services. It is thus much easier for a president or secretary
of defense to require that all services accept an across the- board
budget cut, equally applicable to all, than to compel one service to
accept a cut while another service enjoys an increase.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, composed of representatives of each
service, usually will unanimously recommend policies that benefit all
services equally and reluctantly accept policies that penalize all

equally, Members are obviously incapable of making choices that

would favor one service over another. In any coordinating committee
each member will tacitly agree to support the favored positions of
every other member in exchange for support for his own favored
positions. Though there have been exceptions when Joint Chiefs have
split on major issues, in general they follow this pattern.
This pattern of equal support for each service is reinforced by
the members of the congressional committees who handle military
authorizations and appropriations. At one time each military service
was overseen by separate committees in the House and Senate, but
after World War II these committees were merged into House Armed
Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee.
There remain within these committees strong congressional
advocates of one or the other service. For example, within the House
Armed Services Committee there is the Subcommittee on Seapower,
whose members regularly support larger budget authorizations for the
navy than even the Pentagon requests. In 1978 the subcommittee
proposed a 68 percent increase in the Carter administrations request
for funds with which to build navy ships.
As a result of these constraints, the share of the total defense
budget going to each service changes very slowly. Each major service
usually receives roughly a third of the defense budget. In peacetime
the armys share will be somewhat lower, since the number of soldiers
tends to fluctuate between wartime and peacetime more than the
number of sailors or air force personnel.
The key allocation decisions thus become incremental ones
decisions about what new things to add to a services existing budget
rather than decisions about transferring from one service to another.
Usually these involve the purchase of major new weapons. Over one
third of the total defense budget is devoted to weapons research,
development, and procurement. The more expensive of these weapons
systems, such as the B 1 and B 2 bombers, the MX missile, the
Trident nuclear submarine, and the M1 tank, become the subject of
intense political debate involving the Pentagon, the White House,
Congress, and various interest groups. Interest groups include not only
weapons manufacturers but scientists and private defense budget
analysts in such think tanks, as RAND, the Brookings Institution, and
the American Enterprise Institute.

In these debates many factors strategic, economic, and

political come to the fore. The proposal to build the B 1 bomber,
for example, involved arguments over whether we needed a supersonic
intercontinental bomber; whether such a bomber, even valuable, would
cost too much; and whether making such an investment would have
desirable effects on the economy of those states in which major
components would be produced. Each year funds were requested for
developing the B 1, a prolonged discussion occurred, frequently with
close votes in Congress. President Carter terminated the program, but
President Regan revived it, and the bombers were built.
The congressional role in deciding on weapons systems has
changed somewhat over the years. Before World War II Congress
often made, based on military advice, the most detailed decisions
concerning what equipment to buy, what bases to open, and where
ships and army units were to be located. During the war it retreated
from this activist stance in deference to military opinion; the all out
nature of the war effort and the popularity of the cause dissuaded
members of Congress from acting in a way that might be interpreted as
hindering the fighting forces.
After the war Congress again became assertive, but typically in
favor of different or larger military programs than those proposed by
the president. For example, Congress favored a larger Marine Corps
and a larger air force than President Truman. When Congress
appropriated more money for these purposes than Truman wanted, he
refused to spend it.
Congress was also deeply involved in postwar decisions
regarding the B- 36 bomber, the navys supercarriers, the choice
among competing missile systems, and the building of new fighter
aircraft such as the TFX. While senator, John F. Kennedy criticized
President Eisenhowers emphasis on strategic weapons (bombers and
missiles armed with nuclear bombs) at the expense of conventional
ground forces. After he became president in 1961, Kennedy began to
build up these ground forces and encouraged the creation of the
Green Beret special forces units.
Throughout this period Congress was expanding its power to
affect certain military decisions. In the 1950s it made military
construction appropriations subject to an annual authorization. In the
1960s it made the procurement of weapons systems subject to annual
authorizations.

During the latter part of the 1960s congressional interest in

these matters sharpened and shifted its tone. Congress began to take a
more critical stance toward the military. This reflected the growing
unpopularity of the war in Vietnam, the increase in the influence of
interest groups (such as liberal scientists with experience in weapons
research) that opposed various new weapons systems, and a lessened
popular confidence in military expertise. Unlike in the late 1940s and
1950s, when the decision to go ahead with the development of the
hydrogen bomb, for example, was made by the president acting alone,
without extensive congressional debate, since the late 1960s almost
every new weapons system has been subjective to intensive discussion.
For example, in 1969 the proposed antiballistic missile system
barely survived congressional and interest group opposition (in the
Senate a motion to defeat the plan lost in a tie vote, 50 50).
Ultimately the president scaled down the plan to just one installation,
and in 1975 Congress voted to close down even that facility.
In the 1980s the most controversial new weapons system was
the strategic defense initiative (SDI), more popularly called Star
Wars. President Regan proposed building a system that would
intercept enemy missiles before they could reach this country. No one
doubted that such a system would be complex and costly. The debate
over it reflected both majoritarian politics, with heavy attention to
philosophical and ideological issues, and interest group politics, with
keen rivalries among the armed services and prospective contractors.
The philosophical issues included the systems cost and
feasibility as well as its likely success at actually knocking down
enemy missiles or deterring an enemy from launching missiles.
Conservatives argued that, though costly, it was feasible and a better
way of protecting the United States than relying on our ability to blow
up Soviet cities after they had attempted to blow up ours. Liberals
argued that it would undermine the system of mutual assured
destruction (MAD) whereby each of the superpowers deterred the
other through the threat of massive retaliation and thus increase the
risk of war.
The interest group politics involved the armed services and the
contractors. Many service leaders privately did not favor Star Wars
because its enormous cost would divert resources from their traditional
missions, whether it worked or not. The air force, for example,
operated the land based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)

on which mutual assured destruction depended. If Star Wars were

effective, the need for these missiles might be greatly reduced. But
many defense contractors and the states in which they were located
favored SDI because it held out the promise of big contracts.
Like any major new defense measure, SDI had to go through a
two stage political process in Congress. In the first stage, members
debate the merits of the proposal. Ideology plays a large role. If the
proposal is adopted, then the members maneuver to get contracts for
their districts. Constituency interests play a large role. In the first
stage strong conservatives will vote for increased military spending
even though it may not benefit their district, and strong liberals will
oppose it even if a bigger defense budget might be good for theirs.
But in the second stage both wings of Congress work to get their
benefits. For example, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts is an
outspoken critic of defense spending but extremely effective in getting
jet engine contracts for the General Electric plant in Massachusetts.
_________________________________
What Do We Buy for Our Money?
We buy people, of course soldiers, sailors, airmen, and airwomen
(see Table 21.1). They are the most expensive part of the defense
budget. Then we buy hardware, of roughly two kinds big ticket
items, like aircraft carriers and bombers, and small ticket items, like
hammers and screwdrivers. Each of these kinds of hardware has its
own politics. Finally, we buy readiness training, supplies,
munitions, fuel, and food.
Personnel
Efforts to develop our military forces before World War II reflected
the considerable American discomfort with a strong central
government. The U.S did not institute a peacetime draft until 1940,
when the rest of the world was already at war, and the draft was
renewed the following year (only a few months before Pearl Harbor)
by only a one vote margin in the House. Until 1973 the United
States relied on the draft to obtain military personnel. Then, at the end

of the Vietnam War, it replaced the draft with the all volunteer force
(AVF). After getting off to a rocky start, the AVF began to improve
thanks to increases in military pay and rising civilian unemployment.
Abolishing the draft had been politically popular: nobody likes being
drafted, and even in congressional districts that otherwise are staunch
supporters of a strong defense, the voters tell their representatives that
they do not want to return to the draft.
Of late the size of the armed forces has been shrinking; in 1994
there were 1.6 million men and women in uniform, down from 2.1
million just six years earlier. This decline may make finding recruits
easier than it would have had been had the armed forces remained at
their cold war size.
The problem of finding recruits has been politically less
important than the question of who shall be recruit. There has been a
steady increase in the percentage of women in the military (in 1990
they constituted 10 percent of the total). For a long time, however,
they were barred by law from serving in combat roles. (What
constitutes a combat role is a bit difficult to say, since even
personnel far from the main fighting can be hit by an enemy bomb or
artillery shell.) In 1993 Congress ended the legal ban on assigning
women to navy combat ships and air force fighter jets, and by 1994
between four and five hundred women were serving on three aircraft
carriers. Congress must still be consulted in advance if women are to
serve in ground combat forces (such as in front line infantry or tank
units), but soon they may be in those positions as well.
The presence of homosexuals in the military has proved much
harder to resolve. Until 1993 it was the long standing policy of the
U.S. armed forces to bar homosexuals from entering the military and
to discharge them if they were discovered serving. Gay and lesbian
rights organizations had long protested this exclusion. In 1993 a
soldier won a lawsuit against the army for having discharged him; he
settled for back pay and retirement benefits in exchange for a promise
not to reenlist. In 1993 another judge ordered the navy to reinstate a
discharged sailor who had been revealed on national television that he
was a homosexual. In response to the growing controversy,
presidential candidate Bill Clinton promised to lift the official ban on
gays and lesbians serving in the military if he were elected to office.
Once in office he discovered that it was not that easy. Many
members of the armed forces believed that knowingly serving

alongside and living in close quarters with gays and lesbians would
create unnecessary tension and harm military morale and troop
solidarity. The Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed lifting the ban, and
several key members of Congress said they would try to pass a law
reaffirming it. President Clinton was forced to settle for a
compromise: dont ask, dont tell. Under this policy, persons
entering or serving in the military will not be asked to reveal their
sexual orientation and will be allowed to serve provided they do not
engage in homosexual conduct. If a person says he or she is a
homosexual it will not be automatic grounds for discharge, but it may
be grounds for launching an investigation to see whether rules against
homosexual conduct have been violated.
In 1994 the new Pentagon rules designed to implement this
policy went into effect. They are sure to lead to new lawsuits. For
example, what constitutes homosexual conduct? Going to a gay bar?
Holding hands in public with a person of the same sex?
Big Ticket Hardware
Whenever the Pentagon buys a new submarine, air plane, or missile,
we hear about cost overruns. In the 1950s actual costs were three
times greater than estimated costs; by the 1960s things were only
slightly better actual costs were twice estimated cost.
There are five main reasons for these overruns. First, it is hard
to know in advance what something that has never existed before will
cost once you build it. People who have remodeled their homes know
this all too well. So do government officials who build new subways
or congressional office buildings. It is no different with a B 2
bomber or a Trident submarine.
Second, people who want to persuade Congress to appropriate
money for new airplane or submarine have an incentive to
underestimate the cost. To get the weapon approved, its sponsors tell
Congress how little it will cost; once the weapon is under construction,
the sponsors go back to Congress for additional money to cover
unexpected cost increase. Similarly, contractors who want the
Pentagon to build their new device have an incentive to undress them
after the contract is granted.
Third, the Pentagon officials who decide what kinds of new
aircraft they want are drawn from the ranks of those who will fly it.

These officers naturally want the best airplane (or ship or tank) that
money can buy. As air force General Carl Tooey Spaatz once put it:
A second best aircraft is like a second best poker hand. No damn
good. But what exactly is the best airplane? Is it the fastest one?
Or the most maneuverable one? Or the most reliable one? Or the one
with the longest range? Pentagon officials have a tendency to answer:
All of the above. Of course, trying to produce all of the above is
incredibly expensive (and sometimes impossible) is understandable,
given that the air force officers who buy it will also fly it. This
tendency to ask for everything at once is called gold plating.
Fifth, when Congress wants to cut the military budget, it often
does so not by canceling a new weapons system but by stretching out
the number of years during which it is purchased. Say that Congress
wants to buy one hundred F 14s, twenty-five a year for four years.
To give the appearance of cutting the budget, it will decide to buy only
fifteen the first year and take five years to buy the rest. Or it will
authorize the construction of twenty now and then ask again next year
for the authority to build more. But start- and- stop production
decisions and stretching out production over more years drives up the
cost of building each unit. If Ford built cars this way, it would go
broke.
There are ways to cope with for of these five problems. You
cannot do much about the first, ignorance, but you can do something
about low estimates, gold plating, sole- sourcing, and stretch- outs. If
the Pentagon would give realistic cost estimates initially (perhaps
verified by another agency); if it would ask for weapons that meet a
few critical performance requirements instead of every requirement
that can be thought of; if two or more manufacturers were to compete
in designing, developing and manufacturing new weapons; and if
Congress were to stop trying to cut the budget using the smoke-andmirrors technique of stretch- outs, then we would hear a lot less about
cost overruns.
Some of these things are being done. There is more
competition and less sole- sourcing in weapons procurement today
than once was the case. But the political incentives to avoid other
changes are very best. They will always be tempted to use stretchouts as a way of avoiding hard budget choices.

Small- Ticket Items

It may be easy to understand why jet fighters cost so much, but what
about $435 hammers?
In fact there never was a $435 hammer. It was a myth. The
myth grew out of a complicated Pentagon accounting procedure that
was exploited for publicity purposes by a member of Congress who
thought he had found a hot issue. If you want to understand why
somebody might think that the navy had paid $435 for a hammer, read
the accompanying box on page 646.
The issue in buying small- ticket items is not the hammer
problem, it is the coffee maker problem. Everybody knows what a
hammer is and where to buy one for about $20, tops. But a coffee
maker, if it is especially designed to function on a military plane, is
another matter. If the plane is going to lurch about in rough air, if the
coffee maker has to fit into an odd place, it will occur to somebody in
the Pentagon that what is needed is a specially designed coffee maker.
Once somebody thinks like that, the coffee maker is purchased
in the same way as a new jet fighter, and with results just as bad. The
design is gold- plated (for example, Lets have a coffee maker that
can fly upside down), the contract is let out to a sole source with no
competition, the cost is underestimated, and the production run is
limited to ten coffee maker. The result? A coffee maker that costs
$7,600?
Readiness
Presumably we have a peacetime military so that we will be ready for
wartime. Presumably, therefore, the peacetime forces will devote a lot
of their time and money to improving their readiness.
Not necessarily. The politics of defense spending are such that
readiness often is given a very low priority. Here is why.
The Pentagon budget is very large. Frequently Congress will
want to make cuts, especially during a period when the federal budget
is running a big deficit and the former Soviet Union has collapsed.
Where shall it make the cuts?
Client politics influences the decision. In 1990 Congress was
willing to cut almost anything, provided it wasnt built or stationed in
some members district. That doesnt leave much. Plans to stop
producing F- 14 fighters for the navy were opposed by members from

Long Island, where the Grumman manufacturing plant is located.

Plans to kill Osprey aircraft for the Marines were opposed by members
from the places where it was to be built. Plans to close bases were
opposed by every member with a base in his or her district.
That leaves training and readiness. These things, essential to
military effectiveness, have no constituencies and hence few
congressional defenders. When forced to choose, the services
themselves often prefer to allocate scarce dollars to developing and
buying new weapons than to spending for readiness. Moreover, the
savings from buying less fuel or having fewer exercises shows up right
away, while the savings from canceling an aircraft carrier may not
show up for years. Not surprisingly, training and readiness are usually
what get the ax.
In fiscal 1987 Congress cut heavily into readiness. What is
surprising is that some new weapons were canceled and some old
bases closed. In January 1991 the secretary of defense startled
everyone by terminating the contract to build an advanced tactical
fighter (the A- 12) for the navy on the grounds that the contractors (all
well connected in Congress) had wasted too much money with too
little to show for it.
Bases
At one time the opening and closing of military bases was pure client
politics, which meant that a lot of bases were opened and hardly any
were closed. Almost every member fought to get a base in his or her
district, and every member fought to keep an existing base open. Even
the biggest congressional critics of the U.S. military, people who
would vote to take a gun out of a soldiers hand, would fight hard to
keep a base in their district open and operating.
In 1988 Congress finally concluded that no base would ever be
closed unless the system for making decisions was changed. It created
a Commission on Base Realignment and Closure, consisting of private
citizens (originally twelve, later eight) who would consider
recommendations from the secretary of defense. By law, Congress
would have to vote within forty- five days for or against the
commissions list as a whole, without having a chance to amend it. In
1989 Congress considered the commissions first report, which called
for closing eighty- six bases and slimming down five others. With no

protect and knowing that the country had more bases that it needed,
Congress let the report stand, and the closings began.
In 1991 it went through the same process again, finally voting
to accept (technically, voting not to block) a commission report calling
for closing thirty- four more bases and altering many others.
Congress, it appears, has finally figured out how to make some
decisions that most members know are right but that each member
individually finds it politically necessary to oppose.
_____________________________________
Congress versus the Executive
Defense policy, like Edward S. Corwin said about foreign policy, is an
invitation to struggle. Until World War II, Congress made detailed
decisions about what weapons to buy, what bases to build, and where
troops should be sent. Even during the Civil War, Congress, restless
with President Lincolns conduct of that struggle, attempted to
influence his selection of commanding generals.
During Word War II and for some time there after, Congress
played a more passive role, deferring to the president and the military
chiefs. But since the war in Vietnam, and especially since CarterRegan arms build up began, Congress has reasserted its interest in
detailed decisions, something now called, by its critics,
micromanaging.
The change is easily measured. In 1962 the Senate and the
House Armed Services Committees held twenty- seven hearings and
published 1,400 pages of testimony about the defense budget. In 1985
the two committees held eighty hearings and published 11,246 pages
of testimony. The number of congressional subcommittees concerned
with defense matters more than tripled from 1970 to 1985. The
Military Reform Caucus had taken a keen interest in military policy,
even though only a quarter of its 133 members sit on defenseoversight committees. Whereas, in 1977 the defense budget was
debated in the House for two days and on amendment was offered, in
1986 it was debated for nine days and 116 amendments were offered.
Part of this increased congressional interest in defense policy
reflects changes in the executive branch. A large peacetime military is

bound to attract congressional attention. Part of the increased interest

has little to do with defense and a lot to do with serving constituents in
an era of budget deficits. During the Regan presidency the military
spending bill was one of the few veto- proof bills Congress could pass,
and so members tried to attach to it a lot of pet projects. And a part of
the increased attention reflects the already- noted shifts in the ideology
of members of Congress, as well as the more general resurgence of
congressional assertiveness since the 1970s.