Bush under pressure to boost defense spending

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters): President George W. Bush, who made improvements in the military a centerpiece of his election campaign, is under pressure to spend a lot more money to reshape a ponderous U.S. armed forces for the 21st century.

The White House said this week that apart from an extra US$1 billion for a military pay raise to please troops in the next Pentagon budget, there were no current plans to raise defense spending beyond the $310 billion proposed by former President Bill Clinton in 2002.

"I have sent the message that I think it's very important for us to not have an early supplemental," Bush told reporters on Friday, referring to a possible emergency supplement to the current fiscal year's budget. "It's important for us to do a top- to-bottom review to review all missions, spending priorities."

This kind of talk has set off alarm bells among security hawks in Congress and the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are already pressing for $8 billion extra in the current year for normal worldwide operations and maintenance of aging weapons.

Bush promised in the campaign to spend about $45 billion extra on defense over the next decade. But many Pentagon officials and military analysts, complaining of a run-down in equipment, training and personnel, say that is not enough if current programs remain on track.

They say that $50 billion to $100 billion will be needed in extra funds annually above the current proposed budget.

Private military experts gave Bush good marks for taking a cautious approach to military spending until he has the results of a broad Pentagon policy review.

But they said that major changes were needed in a superpower force depleted by post-Cold War cuts and which needs a major overhaul to face new challenges in the 21st century.

"Terrorism, cyber-warfare, biological weapons, technology proliferation are here now. Changes in defenses must come in the next few years," said Michael Vickers of the private Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

"Army mobility is more important than tanks and massed troops, information from space will be a key to victory, unmanned reconnaissance and attack aircraft will be the norm," Vickers said.

A senior U.S. official told Reuters on Friday that Bush also planned to order a complete review of the U.S. nuclear arsenal with an eye toward unilaterally cutting the U.S. arsenal from more than 7,000 warheads to as low as 2,000.

That could help pave the way for Bush to proceed with his controversial planned National Missile Defense, but analysts have warned that conventional defense could even be more important than nuclear offense and defense in the new century.

Specialists agreed in interviews that nothing like the 1991 Gulf War -- fought in open desert with easy Iraqi targets -- would be undertaken again by the United States.

They said that U.S. troops must be increasingly trained for sneak attacks and urban fighting dominated by technology on both sides.

Michael O'Hanlon of the private Brookings Institution, another Washington think tank, praised a broad review begun by new Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of U.S. military force structure, planning and weapons, including Bush's National Missile Defense (NMD).

"The main thing we have to do here is to guarantee a process of innovation where you don't bankrupt your ability to research and develop new weapons by spending too much on stuff sparked by Cold War thinking," O'Hanlon said.

He and others said the United States should build smaller "Silver Bullet" numbers of expensive F-22 air-superiority fighters and Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) than now planned in order to preserve technology and save money for research on everything from unmanned combat vehicles to chemical and biological sensors.

The U.S. military has shrunk to 1.4 million troops from 2.1 million a decade ago, but analysts said size was not as important as maintaining a critical edge in electronic warfare.

Take, for example, the Navy's heavy reliance on a dozen aircraft carrier battle groups to show the U.S. flag and project global power.

A recent strategy study by the budgetary analysis center stressed that it might be much more important in coming years to rely on long-range conventional missiles fired from converted nuclear missile submarines than on aircraft carriers sailing near enemy shores with short-range jets.

That kind of thinking rattles the Navy, which for decades has depended on giant aircraft carriers. But experts say those floating platforms may become increasingly vulnerable to attack from missiles and even future lasers.

Experts also say there is a problem with continuing to develop short-range fighter jets such as the F-22 and the JSF to replace current aircraft. Both the old and new weapons depend on a shrinking number of foreign U.S. bases, especially in Asia.

One very high-profile problem reigns over the debate on U.S. defense strategy and spending:

Even if the administration seeks a slight increase in the $310 billion Pentagon budget proposed by Clinton for next year, where is the more than $60 billion needed for even a basic missile defense coming from in the years ahead?

Experts concede that the huge cost would be borne over a period of time, but say major funding would be needed up front if actual construction and deployment was begun.

Rumsfeld has told the Pentagon's missile defense office in recent weeks to keep moving on research and development of NMD, but the administration has not spelled out where the money would come from if a deployment decision is made.