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There's one issue in the 2000 Presidential campaign that both Vice-President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush can agree on: More money should be spent on national defense. Bush would pony up an additional $20 billion over five years for research and development of Star Wars-type weapons. Gore pledges to spend $100 billion more on snazzy high-tech weapons and troop training. And on Sept. 14, the Congressional Budget Office concluded the Pentagon needs an extra $50 billion a year for the U.S. military to keep its edge -- though it took no position on whether the Pentagon's size and plans still make any sense.
Here's a novel idea. Why not take a small percentage of all that money and put it toward something of undeniable value to Americans: improving and saving the lives of U.S. troops placed in harm's way? Sexy new weapons certainly generate interest and headlines, but they siphon money away from the mundane gear the grunts on the ground, in the air, and on the seas really need. "The little things get lost in the shuffle: radios and ammunition, the important things," says one congressional aide.
Fact is, American dominance in the field of high-tech weaponry is important, but it hasn't been essential to victory in the kinds of skirmishes the U.S. has found itself embroiled in since the end of the Cold War. Writing in the August Naval Institute Proceedings, retired Navy Captain Larry Seaquist notes that these days, U.S. troops more often face a "ragtag collection of ne'er-do-wells, teenagers, and ordinary citizens temporarily dragooned into service by the local thug-in-chief." Such scrapes should be no contest, but it hasn't worked out that way.
FEW "DUMB" SADDAMS. In 1993 in Somalia, warlord-led gangs actually forced the legendary Delta Force to retreat. In just two days in 1995, Serb paramilitary irregulars killed more than 7,000 men trying to break out of the U.N.'s "safe haven" of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia. NATO wasn't quick enough to counterattack and inflicted no casualties on the Serbs.
In Kosovo, Serbs ousted more than a million Kosovar Albanians while U.S. and NATO troops massed outside the borders. "Barely organized ground forces trumped the best high-tech, high-firepower, info- and aerospace-dominant military in the world," Seaquist says. Only Saddam Hussein was dumb enough to challenge the top conventional forces in the world on their own terms. That's not likely to happen again.
Of course, that won't stop Congress from lavishing funds on more state-of-the-art weaponry. Indeed, in the money wars on Capitol Hill, the speculative future threats of a nation that could challenge the U.S. for air superiority or lob ICBMs on Los Angeles invariably win over actual threats to men and women in service. There's no shortage of support for $340 billion for three new tactical fighter planes or $60 billion for a national missile defense. But somehow, there's not enough money to outfit the Army with body armor that could stop a 9-mm round.
SIX LONG YEARS. That could be achieved for a paltry $500 a soldier. With plates that also could stop more powerful bullets, the tab would come to about $1,400 a soldier, or a total of about $300 million for all 216,000 combat-ready GIs. The vest and plates not only are more effective than current gear but at 16 pounds, they weigh in at 9 pounds less than existing armor. Instead, the Army, which says it doesn't have the money budgeted to spend any more, is buying the new vests at a rate of only 36,000 a year. At that rate, it'll take six years to outfit everyone.
It will take even longer to field a new "load-carriage system," which enables soldiers to lug everything from a rucksack to an ammo pouch. The modular system lets GIs travel lighter and more efficiently than ever before. The system will be produced at a rate of 36,000 a year, too, but an estimated 360,000 grunts could benefit, the Pentagon says. So it will take a decade for everyone to be outfitted.
Another unmet life-or-death necessity is a ground-warning system for Army helicopters. The Navy and Marine Corps have them, but the Army's much-larger fleet doesn't. Partly as a result, from 1980 to 1997, the Army had 100 crashes called "controlled flights into terrain," meaning pilot error, according to a Sept. 15 report by the think tank Frontiers of Freedom Institute. The Army recorded 22 deaths attributed to pilot disorientation last year, the largest number since 1994. The Army also had the highest number of accidents in three years, while the other services, which have the warning system, had record lows.
The price tag? A paltry $40,000 for a ground-warning system that can save both lives and a $15 million aircraft. It would cost only $600 million -- remember, by Pentagon standards, this is still spare change -- to upgrade every Army bird.
NO LOBBYISTS. The list of unmet needs goes on and on: from better canteens to Gore-tex boots to sleeping bags. Granted, it's important that Congress continue to fund weapons programs that preserve U.S. military superiority. But lawmakers who constantly bemoan the state of the military should also think about what would really improve the soldiers' lot -- and quite possibly save their lives.
None of this is headline-making stuff. And no big lobbyists are pushing these items. But the next time GIs fight a bunch of clansmen in some no-man's-land halfway around the globe, this equipment could make a difference. A national Star Wars program or a fleet of F-22 Raptors won't.
Crock covers national-security issues for Business Week Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
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Copyright 2000, Bloomberg L.P.
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