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uPHOLDING MILITARY READINESS in a time of relative peace and prosperity presents enormous challenges to politicians and policy makers. Despite public apathy and occasional resistance, they must make tough decisions that will affect our national sedcurity for years to come. It is a difficult task that many of us in Congress and the executive branch are grappling with at the current time.
Popular conventional wisdom holds that we are now reaping the fruits of a remarkable postwar era--in the aftermath of both Gulf War and Cold War. America now stands as the world's lone superpower. We are told it is a time when the threats we have lived with for a generation have receeded to the ash heap of history. As such, there are strong tendencies to relax, draw down our forces, let down our guard and put off the costly expenses of military upkeep, refurbishment and modernization.
Yet a more realistic view of the world would suggest that we are just as likely to be in the calm prewar era, a time before the next serious challenge to America's vital interests requiring a major military response. History teaches that we are often surprised by hostile international developments, such as Pearl Harbor, the invasion of South Korea, the Cuban Missle Crises, the Iran hostage crises or the invasion of Kuwait. These remind us of the need to say prepared. It is a lesson we may think we have learned until we are surprised once again and caught with our military ill prepared to meet the unforseen crisis of the moment.
Many fear this is where we are today. While the public is complacent, the US military is suffering readiness, modernization and budget shortfalls which are seriously degrading its ability to meet the national military strategy--to be prepared to fight and win two major theater wars nearly simultaneously. At the same time, our smaller forces are being stretched thin by an unprecedented proliferation of noncombat contingency operations and missions.
The administration boasts how the US military is "doing more with less." But if a real war should break out unexpectedly, or if current trends are not reversed soon, we may be unpleasantly surprised to find out that our military can only "do less with less."
As...