In addition to dealing with hot spots around the globe from India to the Persian Gulf, Defense Secretary William Cohen has faced a series of crises on the home front, including a battle with Congress about the readiness of U.S. troops and the size of the Defense Department's infrastructure. National Journal correspondent James Kitfield sat down with Cohen recently to discuss his concerns. Some excerpts:
Q: Why did you recently decide to initiate a series of top-level discussions with the Joint Chiefs on the apparent erosion of readiness?
A: [Vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] Joe Ralston is going to head up that regular review of military readiness with a goal of ratcheting back on our operations tempo, especially among very stressed units that are in particularly high demand. In addition to downsizing our presence in the Persian Gulf--at least until there's another crisis we have to respond to--we're also looking at ways to better manage our personnel tempo so these deployments are more predictable. We've found that the problems are not so much in the Navy and Marine Corps, which generally know when and for how long they will deploy. We want to make deployments more predictable for the Army and Air Force as well.
Q: One of the most intractable problems the Pentagon faces is an exodus of skilled pilots from all the services, but particularly from the Air Force. How do you stanch the hemorrhaging?
A: One way is to try and get back to a pre-crisis level of deployments, because the living conditions on some of the missions are not attractive. Nor do pilots like just `boring holes in the sky' [over no-fly zones in Iraq and Bosnia]. More importantly, however, are the great opportunities our pilots have in the civilian sector. An airline job offering three times the money and one-fourth the work can sound pretty attractive.
We're trying to improve compensation, but it gets complicated when you start increasing bonuses only for pilots. Pretty soon your support personnel start pointing out that the pilots couldn't fly without their contribution. In summary, we're very focused on managing the ... issue better.
Q: For the second year in a row, the Senate Armed Services Committee recently defeated your proposal for another round of base closings. How serious were your suggestions that the Pentagon might unilaterally let some unneeded bases fall into disrepair rather than pay for their upkeep?
A: That is not something I am actively considering. I did not suggest it as an alternative to another round of base closures, but rather as a last recourse. Letting a base wither on the vine by neglecting repairs, maintenance and modernization is not really fair, because the morale of the workforce goes way down. The community also loses, because it doesn't get federal help in reconstituting the base for civilian purposes. But you know, I've got tough choices to make. As a percentage of GDP [gross domestic product] the defense budget continues to decline.
Q: This summer the Pentagon will celebrate the 50th anniversary of President Harry Truman's directive to integrate the United States military. At the same time, the Army recently released figures that showed that white officers were being promoted to the rank of full colonel at twice the rate as their black cohorts. What's causing the disparity?
A: First off, that is a very historic anniversary and it provides me an opportunity to point out the contributions blacks have made to the military going back to before the Civil War. ... As far as the promotion figures, we are concerned. I would like to think it's an aberration, because four years ago the promotion rate for black officers at that level was much higher than we anticipated. But we're going to make a fundamental reexamination of the promotion process to make sure we're providing an equal opportunity for everyone.
Q: After years of promoting consolidation in the defense industrial base, the Pentagon recently reversed course and moved to block the merger of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrup Grumman. Why the change?
A: Our policy is essentially the same, but when you go from a defense industrial base of many companies to just three major defense companies, you have to ask yourself: What is the potential for anti-trust problems? Both the Justice and Defense Departments concluded there were enough warning signs that this merger crossed the line in terms of "vertical integration." Our concern was that--maybe not immediately, but somewhere down the line--second-tier and third-tier subcontractors would be put out of business, because these very large companies would just do all that work in-house. In that environment you wouldn't have the kinds of competition that ultimately save money for the taxpayer.
Q: How seriously do you take warnings that the U.S. defense industrial base has shrunken to such a degree that it would have trouble adequately supporting a high-intensity conflict or war?
A: That is going to present a real challenge for us in the future. When you have very few companies in the defense industrial base, and they are also supplying the commercial market, it's difficult to quickly ramp up weapons and munitions production. We witnessed that in the Persian Gulf war, when we had problems getting adequate numbers of Patriot [anti-missile] missiles produced. Luckily, in that instance we had six months to crank out more missiles, but we're not likely to have that much time in a future conflict.
Q: In a recently released book, your old friend and colleague Gary Hart suggests that America should reduce the size of its military by as much as 50 per cent, returning to our historic reliance in times of peace on citizen-soldiers in the reserves. Isn't that in keeping with American tradition?
A: It sounds attractive, and I don't doubt that there are benefits to Gary Hart's idea of a much larger reliance on the reserves. I would point out, however, that the National Guard and Reserves are less expensive than full-time, active-duty forces--until you use them. When you activate the Guard and Reserves for an actual deployment, however, they are much more expensive than the active-duty forces.
My real problem with Gary's idea of returning to a militia is that we would lose our presence around the world. An integral part of our Quadrennial Defense Review strategy involves "shaping" the international environment, and we do that by being forward deployed in Asia, Europe and the Persian Gulf. That allows our military officers and forces to . . . influence events, so that we avoid having to go to war in the first place. In many regions of the world we're considered the honest broker, and people want us involved. If we adopt the "come home America" philosophy that Pat Buchanan advocates, and which I remember George McGovern proposing in the early 1970s, then other countries will fill that void.
Q: Why did you recently feel it necessary to establish "reconnecting the military to American society" as one of your top priorities?
A: That's an issue I've been concerned about for a long time. When there's an absence of war, there's a strong tendency in liberal democracies to focus on domestic issues. Just because there's no enemy immediately apparent doesn't mean we don't need to be militarily prepared, however, because unfortunately history has shown that peace is not the natural state of humankind. I also want to reconnect the American people to their military, to let them see how smart and dedicated it is, because as we draw down and close bases, there's less interaction between America and its military on a day-to-day basis.
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