The
108th Congress can and should:
- reduce the budget for national
defense from the current sum of about $300 billion to $185
billion (in fiscal year 2002 dollars)—in increments over
five years;
- make it clear that the reduced
budget must be accompanied by a more restrained national
military posture that requires enough forces to fight one
major theater war instead of the current posture based on the
need to wage two nearly simultaneous wars;
- restructure U.S. forces to reflect
the American geostrategic advantage of virtual invulnerability
to invasion by deeply cutting ground forces (Army and Marines)
while retaining a larger percentage
of the Navy and Air Force;
- authorize a force structure of 5
active-duty Army divisions (down from 10 now), 1 active Marine
division (reduced from 3 now), 14 Air Force fighter wings
(down from 20 now), 200 Navy ships (down from 316), and 6
carrier battle groups with 6 Navy air wings (reduced from 12
and 11, respectively);
- require that the armed services
compensate for reduced active forces by relying more on the
National Guard and the reserves in any major conflict;
- terminate weapons systems that are
unneeded or are relics of the Cold War and use the savings to
give taxpayers a break and to beef up neglected mission areas;
- terminate all peacekeeping and
overseas presence missions so that the armed services can
concentrate on training to fight wars and to deploy from the
U.S. homeland in an expeditionary mode should that become
necessary; and
- require negotiations with Russia to
mutually reduce strategic nuclear warheads below START II
levels—to about 1,500 war-heads each.
- reduce tax expenditures by
privatization through letters
of Marque and Reprisal
Links from Americans Against
Bombing:
We will not even begin to see substantive cuts in a bloated
military budget unless we begin a national debate on the subject
of "National
Security: Who Ensures It?"
next: Terrorism
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