We will continue to rely on forward presence of U.S. forces to show U.S. commitment and lend credibility to our alliances, to deter aggression, enhance regional stability, promote U.S. influence and access, and when necessary, provide an initial crisis-response capability. Forward presence is vital to the maintenance of the system of collective defense by which the U.S. has been able to work with our friends and allies to protect our security interests, while minimizing the burden of defense spending and of unnecessary arms competition.

(Jeanne) Kirkpatrick, is considering what other steps can be taken.

Strategic nuclear forces will continue to play an essential role with respect to countries other than the Soviet Union. Nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented. Other countries — some of them, like Iraq, hostile and irresponsible threaten to acquire them. This requires us to maintain a secure retaliatory capability to deter their use. Strategic forces will also continue to support our global role and international commitments, including our trans-Atlantic links to NATO.

With the major reductions we have made and are prepared to make in our base force, it is critical that we ensure the effectiveness of our remaining systems. This entails completing procurement of 20 B-2 bombers – a limited force for specialized missions, particularly in conventional operations and continued upgrades to our B-1B fleet, to ensure safety of operations, to design effective countermeasures and to increase its conventional capabilities. It entails extending the service life of our Minuteman III force and planning for future upgrades as it transitions to a single-warhead system. And it entails outfitting the last Trident submarines while planning how best to sustain the 18-boat force well into the next century.

In addition to these important investments, we must adequately support the operation and training of these forces, the airmen and sailors who operate them and a readiness posture which is appropriate to the reduced threat but does not put our deterrent at risk in a tumultuous world. Finally, the department is working to develop GPALS (Global Protection Against Limited Strikes), and we urge the Congress to continue its strong support for these efforts.

The total size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is shrinking significantly as a result of arms control agreements with the former Soviet Union and the historic unilateral initiatives announced by President Bush last September. But we believe that the remaining force will be sufficiently capable to deter future aggression and to demonstrate our commitment to protect our vital interests.

Forward Presence

Forward presence often involves overseas basing of forces, but it also can take the form of periodic deployments, exercises, exchanges and visits. Important too are arrangements to provide the infrastructure and logistical support to allow for the forward deployment of forces when necessary. Our maritime and long-range aviation forces enable us to exert a presence in areas where we have no land-based forces.

As we adjust to the changing security environment, we are reducing our forward presence in Europe and Asia. The end of the Cold War has made it possible for the United States, in close consultation with our allies, to undertake very substantial reductions in the forces that we station in Europe and a restructuring of the alliance's overall defense posture in Central Europe. Our objective for U.S. forces in Europe for the second half of the 1990s will be a capable corps, given our view that a corps is the smallest size force that provides real combat capability. This translates to a presence of less than half the level of our forces at the beginning of the decade.

A continued U.S. presence will provide reassurance and stability as the new democracies of Eastern Europe mesh themselves into a larger and evolving Europe. It is important to note that both our new friends in Eastern Europe and the leaders of the former Soviet Union have made it clear to me in my visits that they consider a continued U.S. presence in Europe and a strong NATO to be essential to overall European stability.

Because our Pacific friends and allies are assuming greater responsibility for their defense, we can restructure our forces and reduce the number of ground and support forces forward deployed there. We anticipate that more than 25,000 troops will be pulled out of bases in East Asia by December 1992. This includes the withdrawal from the Philippines. However, plans to remove additional forces from South Korea have been suspended while we address the problem posed by the North Korean nuclear program. U.S. forces have a unique role to play in this region.

The changes in our defense posture in the Pacific will be far less extensive than in Europe, because the threat has changed much less here. The United States does not intend to withdraw from Asia and will keep substantial air and naval forces forward deployed in Asia for the foreseeable future.

In Southwest Asia, we are striving with friends and allies to build a more stable security structure than the one that failed on Aug. 2, 1990. But we have major interests in that part of the world and, consistent with the wishes of our local friends, we must remain engaged to protect those interests. Therefore, we will increase our presence compared to the precrisis period. We will want to have the capability to return forces quickly to the region should

that ever be necessary. This will entail increased pre-positioning of equipment and material and a robust naval presence. We have recently signed cooperation agreements with Kuwait and Bahrain in addition to the longstanding agreement with Oman. We are continuing to explore similar arrangements with other friendly countries in the region.

We also have significant interests in Latin America, both because of its proximity and our historic ties to the region. We will face new difficulties maintaining a ground presence there, as in accordance with the provisions of the Panama Canal treaty, we would retain no major bases in Latin America beyond the turn of the century. Despite the general trend toward democratization and peace in Latin America, the situation in Haiti and Cuba - where dramatic reductions of Soviet and East European aid have increased the prospect of instability — reminds us of the continued potential for instability.

The administration has a wellthought-through plan for large-scale reductions in our forward-deployed presence in Europe and Asia to levels consistent with our current national interests and the improved security environment. We have worked closely with our allies in developing these plans; precipitous withdrawals that outpace our already ambitious, announced plans could raise questions regarding U.S. credibility and staying power.

advanced notice against a wellarmed and capable adversary. For this reason, we need the capability to respond quickly to unexpected contingencies. We must be prepared to operate effectively in diverse areas of the world and to cope with differences in climate, terrain, distance from the United States, capabilities of potential adversaries and varied levels of incountry logistical support. These conditions require highly responsive military forces able to move long distances rapidly. For this reason, we must emphasize development of weapons that can be easily transported and supported.

We cannot anticipate that a future adversary will give us the time to prepare for a major operation. For example, had Saddam Hussein kept moving south after he seized Kuwait, it would have been immensely harder for us to defeat his forces and protect Western interests. Regional conflicts will increasingly be complicated by increases in both the conventional and unconventional capabilities in the Third World.

During the gulf war, we faced an adversary armed with chemical and biological weapons. Although Saddam Hussein did not use these weapons, we may not be so lucky the next time. We remain concerned that a number of nations, including Iran and North Korea, are working to develop nuclear or unconventional weapons. As we learned from our experience with Iraq, it can be extremely difficult to know how far such efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction have progressed.

The threat is not limited just to weapons of mass destruction. The global diffusion of military and

dual-use technologies will enable a growing number of countries to field highly capable weapons systems, such as ballistic missiles, stealthy cruise missiles, integrated air defenses, submarines, modern command and control systems, and even space-based assets. As a result, our regional adversaries may be armed with capabilities that in the past were limited only to the superpowers.

Unfortunately, there are both governments and individuals willing to supply proliferating countries with both systems and know-how. We are concerned that political turmoil and economic distress in the states of the former Soviet Union may increase the risk of potentially dangerous technologies getting into the hands of irresponsible governments and individuals. Third World countries attempting to acquire nuclear, biological and chemical weapons will undoubtedly attempt to take advantage of economic distress in the former Soviet Union. The diffusion of advanced conventional technologies developed by the Soviets could tilt regional balances against our interests.

Hence, we must be prepared to face adversaries on their terms, possibly involving the use of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic or cruise missiles. We may need to be able to fight earlier than we had to this time. If the use of weapons of mass destruction is threatened, we may need to win even more quickly and decisively, and we would still want to retain the advantages necessary to keep our own losses as low as possible.

Finally, there is an array of other potential challenges to peace, including the challenge of halting the drug trafficking that fuels instability abroad and drains our own domestic vitality. We must continue humanitarian-assistance efforts and security assistance to aid positive developments abroad. We cannot ignore the reality of terrorist organizations targeting American citizens and interests around the globe. We have to anticipate instability and resulting threats to American citizens. We need the capability to respond quickly anywhere in the world to rescue American citizens endangered by

Crisis Response

As we learned from the gulf war, responding to a regional crisis can mean mounting a very large military operation with little

political instability. Last year, U.S. military forces rescued U.S. and foreign nationals in Liberia and Somalia.

Looking back over the 20th century, we have seen rapid shifts in the geopolitical climate, and the development of new technologies and tactics have repeatedly transformed the battlefield. At present, the absence of a global threat allows us to reduce the size of our military forces. The re-emergence of a global threat, however, would force us to respond by rebuilding our force structure. For this reason, we must have the capability to generate additional new forces should the need arise.

Reconstitution

Reconstitution is intended to deter any potential adversary from attempting to build forces capable of posing a global challenge to the United States and if deterrence fails, to provide a global warfighting capability. In essence, reconstitution is a way of hedging our bets.

When the concept was first incorporated in U.S. defense strategy in 1990, reconstitution planning focused on the possibility that the Soviet Union might seek to restore quickly the reductions it was making in its military forces. Since then, the Soviet Union has ceased to exist, and military forces in the former Soviet Union have been cut even further. Thus, reconstitution

especially in its focus on deterring any potential adversary from building the military forces needed to pose a global threat - is still an important component of our strategy. But the time that would be required for a potential adversary to mount such a challenge is lengthening significantly. Moreover, the identity of such a challenger is less certain. This has fundamental implications for issues of industrial base and reconstitution that we are grappling with. Many questions remain, but some important conclusions are already clear.

The developments of 1991 have significant implications for the foundations on which the president's regional defense strategy rests — technological superiority, quality personnel, core competencies and robust alliances. The end of the Soviet threat and the signifi

cant slowdown or even halt that we expect in Russian modernization programs suggest that we will be able to slow down our own modernization efforts and still maintain our technological edge. Since we are not being chased as hard, we will not have to run as fast. This enables us to cancel some modernization efforts and to emphasize longer periods for research and development and for testing and proving the value of systems before buying. Accordingly, DoD has instituted a new acquisition strategy.

The old U.S. acquisition strategy placed a premium on rapid development and procurement of new systems to counter rapidly evolving Soviet capabilities. New systems often came in late, below specifications and over budget because of "concurrency." It was usually assumed that we would produce everything we researched. Accordingly, firms did R&D (research and development) on the assumption that they could make a profit when they went to full-scale production.

Under the new U.S. acquisition strategy, there will be heavy emphasis on government-supported R&D to maintain the technology base. More work will be done with prototypes to demonstrate capabilities and prove out concepts. We plan to go to full-scale development and procurement on fewer systems - and only after having taken the time to prove out the concept. We will rely more often on inserting new capabilities into existing platforms and upgrades, instead of building totally new systems. We will also place greater emphasis on producibility of systems and manufacturing processes.

emphasis on maintaining our technological edge. First, other nations will continue to make advanced systems and, in the shrinking international arms market, there will be an increasing likelihood of sales or diversions to irresponsible parties. Commercial technologies are at the heart of much of the military technological revolution. These developments will be readily available.

Second, the U.S. response in regional crises must be decisive, requiring a technological edge to win quickly. There are several reasons for this. During the Cold War, we prepared to repel a massive Soviet invasion of Europe. Outnumbered, our strategy for the opening phase of a war in Europe was defensive; we sought to delay Warsaw Pact forces until we could reinforce our positions. Americans understood that our long-term national survival was at stake and that a long, drawn-out war could result. Fundamentally, our goal was to deter rather than to win. In regional conflicts, our stake will be less immediate, and political and strategic considerations will require a decisive outcome. We cannot afford to trade American lives with tyrants and aggressors who do not care about their own people, and we can afford to make them fight on our terms. This requires a continuing emphasis on technological superiority.

Finally, we may require advanced systems to deal with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, either to destroy them before they are used, to defend against them or to win decisively to discourage others from contemplating their use.

As we reshape America's military and reduce its size, we must be careful that we do so in accordance with our new defense strategy and with a plan that will preserve the

Technological Edge

Despite the end of Soviet competition, there are several good reasons to continue our strong

either provide support for active units that are being eliminated or were directed at countering a Warsaw Pact invasion into Central Europe. We need the Guard and Reserve, but not these excess units. On the active-reserve mix, you get a C-minus, and that's with grading on the curve.

integrity of the military capability we have so carefully built. The gulf war and the regional strategy underscore the importance of preserving the high quality of our personnel and of retaining the lead in core military competencies. These include areas of warfare such as air superiority, armored warfare, missile defense and submarine and anti-surface warfare. Our reductions will serve us ill if they damage the high-quality force we have built or destroy the institutions that must develop the doctrine and tactics of the future.

There are those in Congress and elsewhere who now propose reductions in the defense budget that are simply too steep and too dangerous. Their proposals would end up destroying the finest military force this nation has ever fielded. If we try to reduce the force too quickly, we can break it. If we fail to fund the training and high quality we have come to expect, we will end up with an organization that may still outwardly look like a military, but that simply will not function. It will take a long time, lost lives and many resources to rebuild; our nation's security will be hurt, not furthered, by such precipitous defense cuts.

If we choose wisely today, we can do well something America has always done badly before - we can draw down our military force at a responsible rate that will not end up endangering our security. We did not do this well after WWII, and we found ourselves unprepared for the Korean war barely five years later. We did not draw down intelligently after Vietnam, and we found ourselves with the hollow forces of the late '70s. We are determined to avoid repeating these costly errors.

Having been in this job a while now, I wanted to take a moment to comment on how you — my friends on the Hill are doing as we redirect America's military for the post-Cold War world. These have been tough times when it comes to formulating defense policy, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Many individual members have played courageous and statesman-like roles.

Even so, looking at the Congress as a whole, it's not an encouraging picture. I do give you high marks, say, a B-plus, on the base closing commission

while a tough decision, those closures will help us take money out of unneeded infrastructure and put it into essential military capability.

But that same type of congressional leadership has been missing from program cancellations. Congress has let me cancel some programs. But you've squabbled and bickered and horsetraded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons systems that just don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. You've directed me to buy the V-22, an unproven program I don't need. You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F14s, and F-16s — all good systems, but we have enough of them. This is a waste: you get a C-plus on program cancellations.

And it gets worse. On the issue of eliminating reserve force structure that is no longer needed, you insisted on keeping forces that were configured for a different type of threat - a different kind of strategic environment — and these unneeded forces are consuming dollars I need for a balanced program. These reserve forces

Electoral Politics

Most outrageous is the pork. Congress has directed me to spend money on all kinds of things not related to defense, but mostly related to electoral politics. We shouldn't waste the taxpayer's money. I am sending back to Congress in the defense recision list each of these ridiculous expenditures. Congress has directed me to spend $129 million on grants to specified universities to be awarded non-competitively for subjects we don't need to study. Congress has added $12 million for four museums that honor fine aspects of defense, but this is not the type of thing we need to be spending money on in these days of tight defense budgets. Congress directed me to spend $61 million on unnecessary meals ready to eat, when we're already having trouble giving MREs away.

As harmful as those who want us to keep unwanted programs in the defense budget are those who want us to cut too much. The nation faces a number of economic problems — the burgeoning deficit is one of them. But proposals to undertake drastic defense cuts beyond the president's programs won't solve those problems. They will, however, endanger the force.

Under the president's budget, the share of GNP devoted to defense spending will have been cut by roughly half between FY 1986 and FY 1997. America can afford to spend 3.4 percent of GNP on defense in the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, since the mid-1970s, non-defense spending has been twice as large as defense spending and is now three times as large and growing. There is little reason to expect that drastically cutting defense below the president's budget will lead to greater discipline on the significant growth in non-defense spending.

The decisions that we're going to make on the defense budget in the period immediately ahead have one very clear purpose: They are preparation for the next time we go to war. And there will be a next time. These decisions are not about jobs back home in some congressman's district, not about political pork, not about the economic impact in the communities affected, although obviously, those are all important considerations. These decisions are about America's security, about deterring war, about winning decisively if war is forced upon us and about saving the lives of the men and women of our fighting forces.

In the last conflict, we were blessed because the casualty levels were arnazingly low, but it's important for us never to forget that for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it was not a cheap or a low-cost conflict. When we think about the future and the budget debate on Capitol Hill in the months ahead, it's very important to remember that if we cut defense irresponsibly - if we do what we have done every time previously when we've been through one of these periods of radical force reductions — if we make the wrong decisions, then we will more likely to go to war again; and when we do, there will be a lot more of our people who don't come home when it's over.

If we make the wrong choices now — if we waste defense dollars on force structure we cannot support or on more weapons than we need or on bases we no longer require – then the next time young Americans go into combat, we may suffer casualties that could have been avoided.

for an initial response to regional contingencies.

Reserve forces will provide other essential support units — in increasing numbers for extended confrontations — as well as combat units to augment and reinforce active forces in large or protracted confrontations and units to perform several missions wellsuited to reserve forces, including stateside air defense, civil affairs and tactical air reconnaissance.

Implementation of the new defense strategy and base-force concept will result in significant force reductions. But to preserve the quality and sufficiency of America's armed forces as we transition to these lower levels and as we stay below the sharply lower defense spending levels proposed by President Bush, Congress must allow the Defense Department to: Terminate unneeded

programs and to do so without mandating a “soft landing" or year or two of respite;

Close, consolidate or realign military bases;

Streamline our defense infrastructure and procedures;

Reduce manpower without arbitrary restrictions; and

Maintain a proper balance between active and reserve forces.

The fiscal year 1993 budget request for the Department of Defense is $267.6 billion in budget authority and $272.8 billion in outlays. Adjusting for inflation, this means a real decline in budget authority of 7 percent below the FY 1992 level enacted by Congress and 29 percent below FÝ 1985. For FY 1993 through FY 1997, DoD budget authority will decline, in real terms, an average 4 percent per year. By FY 1997, the cumulative real decline in budget author

ity since FY 1985 will total 37 percent. That will leave 1997, in inflation-adjusted budget authority, on a par with 1960, and only slightly higher than the nadir hit in 1974-76.

Defense outlays as a share of the U.S. GNP are expected to fall to 3.4 percent in FY 1997, well below any time since before World War II. By FY 1997, defense outlays should fall to 16 percent of total federal outlays, down from a post-Vietnam peak of 27 percent in 1987.

It is revealing to contrast trends in defense spending with other federal outlays. Under the president's defense request, by FY 1997 the cumulative real decline in defense outlays since FY 1985 will be 26 percent. Over the same period, mandatory federal spending is projected to increase in real terms about 33 percent and domestic discretionary outlays increase about 8 percent.

DoD's FY 1992-97 Future Years Defense Program has been reduced by $50.4 billion in budget authority below the levels, adjusted for inflation revisions, that were in last year's request and that were consistent with the budget summit levels. Over the six-year period, outlays would be cut $27.4 billion below last year's plan, revised for inflation.

Military Force Levels

Our recommended base-force structure assumes that future commitments of, U.S. forces will be in partnership with other nations. It takes account of the contributions that could be made by our allies and friends.

The base force relies on both active and reserve components. Active forces will provide the primary capabilities for day-to-day operations, as well as most of the combat and support units needed

Gulf Figures

The topline budget figures ... exclude the dollars appropriated to pay the incremental U.S. costs of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Doing this is consistent with the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act, which mandated that U.S. spending on Desert Shield/Storm be treated as emergency-funding requirements and not subject to the budget ceilings agreed by Congress and the