March 20, 1980
Page 6116
REMARKS OF SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE BEFORE THE NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE FOOD MARKETING INSTITUTE
Mr. HART. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Maine, Senator (MUSKIE) recently made a speech before the National Convention of the Food :marketing Institute, which succinctly summarizes some of the problems facing the Congress as it seeks ways to balance the budget in fiscal year 1981.
Senator MUSKIE's statement focus on the dilemma of how to set responsible budget targets for our national defense in a time of significant international tension — while at the same time address e crucial domestic issues of inflation and energy. The theme of our distinguished colleague's remarks is pertinent to all functions of the Federal budget, not just the national defense function. The fight against inflation is a national one and we must all be prepared to evaluate needs along the lines stressed by the Senator. I believe his remarks deserve wide attention, and I ask that they be printed in the RECORD.
The remarks follow:
REMARKS OF SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE BEFORE THE FOOD MARKETING INSTITUTE, MARCH 11, 1980
Samuel Gompers was a founder and leading spokesman of the American labor movement. A reporter once asked him "What does labor want?"
His reply was pointedly brief: "More."
Sadly for the art of budget management, not all such questions are answered so succinctly; nor with such disarming candor. Each year, as the Federal budget takes shape, agencies of Government plead their cases for new resources. They are eloquent. They are persuasive. Their deprivations are indexed by computer.
But it all comes down in the end to a simple, one syllable request: "More."
Unfortunately, however, budget makers must be content with unhappy realities. Resources are limited. Demands are not.
And so, a great debate ensues on the proper distribution of the Federal dollar.
The congressional budget process is a forum for that debate and a channel through which competing interests are weighed and balanced. It is a testing place. And those who argue for a larger share of funds must do so in the face of three fundamental restraints: The effort to balance the budget; the effort to limit taxation; and competing demands from other quarters.
Each spring, groups and associations assemble in Washington to participate in that argument. That is a useful contribution. You know the needs and challenges of your industry far better than legislators do. It is important for us to understand your concerns and to appreciate their relevance to spending and budgeting decisions.
In any given year, spending constraints and those competing demands for Federal attention impose limits on what any interest group can hope to realize in the Federal budget picture. But this year, those constraints are more severe than ever.
We are facing an economic crisis which will impose the harshest kind of restraint on Federal spending. We are facing very real and much justified demands for a balanced budget. And we are also facing heightened international tensions which create strong new pressures for an expansion of military spending — an expansion which will further constrain the domestic budget.
As representatives of one of America's most important industries, you are concerned about the health of our economy. As Americans, as citizens, and as parents, you are concerned about the state of our defenses and prospects for peace in the world.
Both concerns are intimately linked to the current debate regarding military spending. I would like to focus on that debate in the course of these remarks. It is a debate which will determine a great deal about our role in the world and our prosperity at home. Unfortunately, the debate has too often been framed in misleading terms.
Some demand an after-inflation increase of three percent in military spending. Others argue that five percent is needed. Still others insist that twice that amount would barely cover necessities.
Particularly during election years, such arguments tend to degenerate into simpleminded one-up-manship.
"If a five percent increase will make us stronger, ten percent will be twice as effective."
This frantic game of bidding up percentage points is a deeply flawed analysis of needs. In fact, it is no analysis at all. It begins with conclusions and works back to questions. It settles on a level of investment, then looks for things to buy.
Logic demands a reversal of that process. So does a rational defense spending plan. There is no room for panic in the treatment of this issue.
Dispassionate analysis may well determine a need for a substantial military spending increase. But until that analysis is made, no one can say how much is enough — let alone assign percentage points.
Any student of mathematics knows that solutions can't be found until problems are stated correctly. We must begin to solve our military problems by asking the right questions — questions about the ends we want to achieve and the means required to achieve them.
Military power is not an end but a means — a means for securing our defense and for advancing our foreign policy interests. Arbitrary comparisons of United States and Soviet military spending bear no necessary relationship to relative levels of strength.
"How much for defense?" is the ultimate question which we in Congress must address. But some important preliminary questions must be answered first. Too many observers are inclined to reach for the checkbook before asking questions like these:
What are our interests? How are they threatened? What do we need to defend ourselves? What can we afford to spend in pursuit of less vital interests? How can we do it with maximum efficiency and at minimum cost?
If those questions are to be answered responsibly, they must be approached in an effort to arrive at a conclusion, not to prove any preconceived notions. Unfortunately, there are no obvious answers.
The term "political science" is a poor characterization. In its most sublime moments, the process of Government can be raised to the beauty of an art, but never to the precision of a science.
Scientists enjoy the luxury of relying on solid assumptions and depending on reliable, reproducible formulas. Water will freeze at 32 degrees. You can count on it every time.
But America's security cannot be pegged to percentage points. It isn't that easy. Only a rigorous analysis of needs, capabilities, costs and benefits can build the foundation for well informed judgments. And even those judgments can only be tentative.
Beware of the practitioner of statecraft who designs his policies on a calculator. In the late nineteenth century, Sir Josiah Stamp was the head of Britain's Inland Revenue Department. "The government is very keen on amassing statistics," he said. "They collect them, add them, raise them to the Nth Power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But you must never forget that every one of these figures comes in the first instance from the village watchman, who just puts down what he damn pleases."
Hopefully, the military and intelligence officers who provide us with statistics are more fastidious than the village watchman. But accurate statistics are useless and even misleading unless they are reviewed in the setting of an overall strategic context.
There are three basic elements of the setting within which defense spending must properly be considered — military, diplomatic, and economic. Let me review some basic assumptions about this broader setting, beginning with the military environment.
The world in which we live is indeed a dangerous place. There are forces at large who wish us ill. Some are capable of frustrating our ambitions and undermining our interests. A few are positioned to threaten our economy and erode the security of our allies.
But only one nation is powerful enough to threaten our very survival. It is the Soviet threat which concerns us most of all. It is the Soviet threat which dominates our strategic thinking and sets the pace for our military planners.
It is a real threat, and a sobering one. But it is not a threat which we are unprepared to meet.
In recent years, the Soviets have expanded and modernized their military at an unprecedented rate. They have built a formidable force. The statistically inclined have constructed startling tables with disconcerting comparisons of tanks, aircraft and soldiers.
We have all seen colored maps of the world with the Soviet Union and its spheres of influence boldy shaded in red. But somewhere in the Kremlin, a similar map disquiets the commissars.
Our military planners are rightly concerned about the strength of Soviet arms and the nature of Soviet intentions. Preliminary evidence suggests some dangerous disparities that must promptly be redressed in various categories of Soviet and American forces.
But the world is not a chessboard with 32 squares on each side and equal access to the center of the game. And disparities in numbers are not the only measures of strength.
The Soviets are ringed on the east, west and south by resentful satellites, a powerful Chinese enemy, and a strong NATO alliance. We have no enemies at our borders.
We are allied with powerful friends. On whom can the Soviets rely? Taken together, NATO, Japan and the United States are clearly superior to the Soviet bloc.
And if the order to attack came down from Moscow to the satellites, no one is sure at whom they would aim.
Beyond such comparisons, a nation's power is the sum of many ingredients. In every significant nonmilitary match-up, the Soviets come up short.
In a moment of candor, Leon Trotsky once observed that the Soviet Union is the only nation on earth where the work is done by hand and the books are written by machine.
Let me assure you that we are still the strongest nation in the world.
Our strategic nuclear missiles, bombers, and submarines are superior to those of the Soviets. We retain the capability to devastate the Soviet Union — even if they shoot first.
Our Navy is unsurpassed around the world. The Soviet Navy is superior only in Soviet home waters where we would go only as a last resort.
We and our NATO allies have enough ground and air forces to deter a Soviet attack on Europe.
Our military options are limited only in Afghanistan and in other areas where geography and a long term Soviet presence have given them a substantial edge.
Iran is not such an area. The Soviets would retain geographic and logistical advantages. But they could not be confident of victory. They could depend on paying a very high price for their aggression.
None of this suggests that the west has nothing to fear from the Communist superpower. The invasion of Afghanistan has taught us a valuable lesson. But the evidence indicates that their experience with aggression has taught the Soviets some lessons as well.
It is said that all they understand is force. But they also understand the cost of a sudden shutdown in the flow of western technology. They understand the propaganda consequences of a widespread boycott of the Moscow olympics. They understand what their brutality has cost them in the perceptions of the Third World.
Perhaps they do not yet fully understand the price of military adventurism. That is one reason why we may be compelled to strengthen our own defenses.
But it is essential that we keep in mind another context for strategic decision-making: The economic setting.
We cannot provide for the common defense with insufficient arms. But a valid assessment of our national security goes well beyond an inventory of firepower.
Understandably enough, Soviet brutality has distracted our attention from problems closer to home.
But Soviet troops are not destroying confidence in the value of the dollar. Inflation is doing that.
Soviet bayonets are not eroding the American standard of living. Inflation is doing that.
Soviet bombs are not demolishing the foundations of our economy. Inflation is doing that.
The Soviet Union is a serious threat to important American interests. But no foreign enemy is nearly strong enough to attack us here in our homes. Inflation is the only enemy with the power to make that conquest — not in some uncertain period of future vulnerability, but today. Now.
Let those who speak glibly of a ten-percent increase in military spending for the next five years think once or twice about that.
Who are the Members of Congress who scream loudest about the inflationary impact of the Federal deficit? They are the very same Members who demand that we spend one hundred billion more than the President has requested in an already expanded military budget for 1981 through 1984.
There are program managers in the Pentagon today who must be convinced that they've died and gone to heaven.
Just a short time ago, the Pentagon was designing a "high-low" mix for both ships and aircraft.
The "high" mix of expensive, sophisticated ships and planes would perform the more difficult tasks. The "low" mix of less expensive systems would be perfectly adequate for less demanding missions.
But the scent of cash is in the air. The high-low mix is no longer fashionable. Military planners are concentrating now on the most expensive ships and planes.
Super sophistication and high technology is certainly valuable in some combat scenarios. But not every mission demands such capabilities.
In the area of military planning, as in many other endeavors, it sometimes seems that our cleverness has surpassed our wisdom. Why should we buy the most expensive ships or aircraft when cheaper and less sophisticated weapons will meet the standard? In many tactical missions, numbers are more important than gimmicks.
It is more than just thrift and prudence which recommends efficient military spending. Inflation is doing a great deal more than making the nickel candy bar extinct. In just one year, the production cost of many major aircraft has increased by 50 percent. Next year, the average carrier-based tactical aircraft is expected to cost twenty-seven million dollars.
Inflation drains our national strength. It erodes our ability to influence international events. It aids and comforts our enemies.
Our security is threatened by many dangers, and the price of military weakness is a very alarming one. But so is the price of gold. In working to counteract one of these threats, we cannot afford to aggravate the other.
Let me turn finally to the third important factor which underlies the defense spending issue — the international situation and American foreign policy.
There is no time here for a thorough review of our many foreign interests. But let me focus for a moment on the most important of these — access to foreign oil in adequate supply and at tolerable cost.
Military resources play an important role in the pursuit of that interest in the Middle East. The loss of free access to that vital oil would stagger our economy. And it would all but destroy the very independence of our NATO and Japanese allies.
The Soviet threat to those oil fields has been heightened by the invasion of Afghanistan. The region's instability has been aggravated by events in Iran. All of this calls for a renewed American and allied effort to strengthen our defenses.
But it was not the Soviet Union and it was not the Ayatollah who forced us into such dependence on Middle Eastern oil. We did that to ourselves.
Military power may keep at bay a growing threat to Middle Eastern oil. But only the enhancement of energy independence can provide a lasting solution. That is not a military problem.
The Shah's great armies and sophisticated weapons failed to protect him from the consequences of his mistakes. Neither can they save us from the consequences of ours.
We in the Congress will be looking for answers to the serious question, "How much is enough for the military defense of the Persian Gulf?" We must be prepared to pay the price. But we must be prepared for more than that. We must look beyond the simplistic assumption that military spending alone can buy us real security.
Weapons are essential, but so is a lesser dependence on foreign oil and a more effective foreign policy.
And so we proceed with the serious business of designing a military budget. Like the labor leader I mentioned at the outset, the Pentagon tells us that the military needs more. In an increasingly dangerous world, more it will probably be.
But let us not distort our perspective. More may be needed to meet the military threat — but not to meet some arbitrary percentage point.
More may be needed to advance our interests abroad — but not without regard for prices at home.
More may be needed to protect the oil of the Middle East — but weapons and soldiers cannot fill the need for an effective energy plan and a viable foreign policy.
The ultimate point is this: Military spending cannot stand apart from the rigorous scrutiny imposed on other investments — not merely because a tight defense budget will enhance our fiscal integrity — but also because it will enhance our security and contribute to our strength.