Fortress America

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excerpts from the book

Fortress America

by William Greider

PublicAffairs Press, 1998introductionThe vast industrial structure required to support and supply the armed forces ... continues inplace with massive capabilities, still inventing and producing, still imagining a next generation of advanced weaponry that can prevail over [an] unnamed future enemy.Congress, two presidents, the public at large, and both political parties have all seemed to findnothing strange in this. America remains expensively ready for war. No one in authority daresquestion this, and the public does not ask: to what end?***p9The parking lots of armor reflect, crudely, the great national dilemma we are evading. America isexperiencing a deep confusion of purpose at this moment of history, holding on to a past that isdefunct, but unable to imagine a different future. The Cold War is over, but not really, not yet.Too many tanks with nowhere to send them. Too many bombers and fighter planes, too manyships and rockets. Too many men and women in uniform. Our troops are the best in the world,splendidly trained and capable, brilliantly equipped with dazzling weaponry. But what exactly arethey to do, now that a general peace is upon us? We don't know the answer. We don't even wantto talk about it.

The defense budget has been reduced since the Berlin Wall came down eight years ago, but $250billion is still much larger (even after allowing for inflation) than in I980, the height of Cold Wartensions. Overall troop strength has been downsized by roughly one-third, but the nationcontinues to maintain the heavied-up military force designed and equipped to go head to headagainst the Soviets. That force structure anticipated a full-scale war waged across the plains of Central Europe-across many of the nations of Central Europe now poised to join NATO.Fortress America remains mobilized to fight the big one but justifies itself now with vague threatscenarios that envision fighting two wars at once, twin regional conflicts that will be smaller inscale but simultaneous. Instead of a robust debate over new priorities or skeptical questioning of these fanciful premises, the political elites in both parties have settled into denial and drift-a statusquo that argues only over smaller matters, like which new weapon systems to fund and where theywill be built. Defense spending, as one strategic analyst put it, has become "the new third rail of American politics." Most politicians are afraid to touch it.It seems improbable that Americans will wish to spend more on a peacetime mobilization, notwhen federal spending is being cut for nearly everything else. Indeed, the public is inclined rightnow to stand clear of foreign engagements, especially ones that might involve American casualties.Despite the official projections, most analysts expect defense spending to remain flat or evendecline further.But unwilling or unable to adapt to the new circumstances, the armed forces and their alliedmanufacturers are proceeding with ambitious plans based on the assumption that the reduction indefense spending is only temporary and that Pentagon budgets will soon begin rising robustlyagain. (The Clinton administration assumes the same: its five-year projections call for another $30billion and a 40 percent increase in the procurement budget, while Republicans seek even more.)Until more money arrives, the defense apparatus is literally feeding on its own parts, pinching thisand that, scrimping here and there, in order to keep the same Cold War force structure in placeand the same lineup of new weapons moving through the pipeline of development. During theCold War era, the military institution acquired a reflexive appetite for growth that it's nowunwilling to give up. Instead, it lumbers toward a self-induced crisis of malnourishment, as whenan addict's starving body eats its own liver.Some smart people, in and out of the Pentagon, see what's coming and have proposed variousblueprints for fundamental restructuring and drastic reduction. Radical alternatives are shruggedoff by political and military leaders, however, not to mention the defense industry. It is notnecessary to study the mind-numbing budget projections to see the problem. The outlines arevisible in the routine facts of military life, the daily burden of maintaining the best and biggestarmy, navy, and air force in the world.***The Pentagon has been dumping old tanks like an army-navy surplus store conducting frantic"going out of business" sales. Giving them away to friendly nations. Selling them at deepdiscounts. Offering them free to local museums. It dumped one hundred old Sherman M-60s intoMobile Bay off the Alabama coast to form artificial reefs for fish in the Gulf of Mexico. Severalhundred more are being sunk along other coastlines for the same purpose. One year it gave forty-five tanks free to Bosnia and another fifty to Jordan. It shipped ninety-one tanks to Brazil under ano-cost, five-year lease, and thirty to Bahrain on the same terms. Another I60 tanks were sold to

Taiwan for $I30,000 each, priced at ten cents on the dollar. Egypt got seven hundred free bypicking up transportation costs.One way or another, the Army has disposed of nearly six thousand older tanks during the last sixyears. Giving them away "is often cheaper than destroying or storing them," Lora Lumpe andPaul F. Pineo explained in a I997 study by the Federation of American Scientists. In the I980s,they observed dryly, the United States spent many billions on modernizing the Army's entireinventory of armor, helicopters, artillery, and other gear. In the I990s, it unloaded "a literalarmy" composed of the same stuff, albeit usually older models. Plus there are the hundreds of "excess" aircraft and ships from the Air Force and Navy inventories."The services appear to be giving away still useful equipment in order to justify procurement of new weaponry," Lumpe and Pineo asserted. "Much of the equipment now declared 'excess' isquite serviceable. In fact, a lot of it was purchased or reconditioned in the Reagan arms build-upof the I980s." These bargain sales have not provoked much controversy, except for occasionalcomplaints from defense firms trying to sell new armaments to the same countries.***p30Next year, the keel will be laid for another new carrier, the Ronald Reagan, which is likely to cost$5 billion. Does anyone dare ask whether America actually needs this aircraft carrier calledRonald Reagan?***p40This spring, Lockheed Martin rolled out the first model of the F-22 at its plant in Marietta,Georgia, and staged an official celebration of the plane that is said to ensure "air dominance" inthe twenty-first century. The F-22 was conceived and designed in the I9805 to meet the Sovietthreat that Pentagon planners projected for the mid-1990s. And so it will, despite the awkwardfact that the Soviet Union no longer exists.Each F-22 will cost $I6I million (assuming the cost estimates are accurate and honest), and the AirForce wants to buy around 438 of them, a future commitment of $70 billion.The Navy, meanwhile, is replacing its aircraft, too. The new F/A-I8 E/F fighter-bombers, to bebuilt by Boeing, will cost $80 million each-a lot less than the F-22, but the Navy intends to buy1,000 of them, a commitment of $80 billion.The Army, for its part, has a $4S billion program under way to acquire I,292 new Commanchearmed reconnaissance helicopters.The armed services are together also purchasing $76 billion in precision-guided bombs plus newequipment for air defense and close artillery support. That's roughly $300 billion in betterweaponry for the future. But there's more.The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps are collaborating on the creation of the Joint Strike

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