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Hollowing Out The Military

News/Current Events Opinion (Published)
Source: New York Post
Published: June 26, 1999 Author: Editorial
Posted on 06/26/1999 00:28:29 PDT by expat

HOLLOWING OUT THE MILITARY

Mayor Giuliani, a likely candidate for federal office, spoke out on an issue of substantial national import last week - and got his knuckles soundly rapped by the White House.

Giuliani told a breakfast for Holy Cross College alumni what anybody who's been paying even minimal attention to the subject has known for years: to wit, that the Clinton administration has permitted, if not encouraged, a demonstrable decline in American military strength.

Interestingly, the White House didn't really disagree with the substance of the mayor's remarks. Spokesman Jake Siewert termed them "inaccurate" - Clintonese for "He's right but we don't want to admit it" - and then took issue with Giuilani's timing. The president was in Italy having his picture taken with pilots who flew combat missions over Yugoslavia, you see, so the mayor's criticism was "inappropriate."

Baloney. It would be hard to imagine a more appropriate time to question Clinton's commitment to a strong national defense than a couple of days after the end of a war that saw America's supply of cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs all but depleted - and the Pacific fleet deprived of effective air cover for the first time since the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942.

It was on Clinton's watch that the production of Tomahawk missiles was shut down.

And it was on Clinton's watch that so many aircraft carriers were mothballed - four - that the Navy had to strip the Seventh Fleet of its sole carrier battle group to carry out its assigned missions in the Kosovo war.

And that's not all.

Since the 1992 election, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, America's armed forces have lost morethan 700,000 active-duty soldiers, sailors and airmen (plus 300,000 reservists). The Army has lost eight combat divisions; the Air Force and Navy have been stripped of 20 air wings (or 2,000 combat aircraft) - and the Navy has lost more than 120 surface combat ships and attack submarines.

The institute further reports that U.S. defense spending - in real dollars - dropped by 29 percent between 1992 and 1998, while overall federal spending rose by nearly 20 percent.

Some of this, obviously, was appropriate. The Cold War is, indeed, over. But there are peace dividends - and then there are peace dividends.

The cuts have been so deep that it takes a village idiot not to see that readiness has been severely affected by the cuts.

Readiness for what, you might fairly ask? It is the Clinton administration that has embraced the so-called "two regional wars" strategy - which holds, in essence, that America must be ready to fight, and win, two small wars virtually simultaneously. The approach visualizes U.S. forces bringing an Operation Desert Storm II to a successful conclusion - and then being able to jump immediately into a Korean War II.

Fat chance.

Again, the air campaign over Yugoslavia stressed America's capabilities to their current limit. Who, after all, can forget the five-week fandango the Army conducted as it tried to move 24 Apache helicopters from Germany to Albania (whereupon two promptly crashed)?

It is true that the Air Force and Marine Corps will have sufficient aircraft to ferry Hillary Clinton around the Empire State as she seeks a seat in the U.S. Senate - or so the White House announced last week.

The troops should be so lucky.