• The post-Cold War decline in defense spending began during the Bush Administration.

• There is almost no difference between the level of funding proposed for defense by President Bush in his last fiscal year (FY) 1994-99 budget plan and the level of funding actually provided for defense over this six-year period under the Clinton Administration. Both Bush planned funding and actual funding amounted to $1.72 trillion (in FY 2001 dollars).

• Congressional add-ons since 1995, when the Republican Party gained control of both houses, account for only about 3 percent of the defense topline of the past six years.

• Not only was the drawdown of the 1990s clearly a bipartisan affair, the best available evidence suggests that Democrats and Republicans are still remarkably close in terms of their support for defense spending. Under the latest Clinton Administration plan, funding for defense is projected to remain essentially flat in real (inflation-adjusted) terms through fiscal year (FY) 2005. The latest Congressional Budget Resolution (CBR) would provide only about one-third of 1 percent more over this period. In reality, the effectiveness with which the Department of Defense (DoD) is able to address US security challenges in the future is likely to depend much more on how wisely DoD spends than how much it spends.

By comparison, under the Clinton Administration, funding for defense declined by about 13.1 percent between FY 1993 and FY 1998, when funding for defense bottomed out, and has risen 6-7 percent since then. The actions of the now Republican-controlled Congress have been partly responsible for the recent upswing in funding for defense. Like the cuts begun under the Bush Administration, the increases of the past several years owe something to the actions of both Congress and the Clinton Administration.

Little Difference Between Last Bush Plan and Actual Spending
In January 1993 just before leaving office, President Bush presented the FY 1994-99 defense plan that he would have submitted to Congress had he been reelected. Under this plan, funding for DoD was projected to decline in real terms by some 19 percent over the FY 1992-97 period and then stay flat at that level through FY 1999. By comparison, under the Clinton Administration, DoD funding actually declined by about 18 percent between FY 1992 and FY 1997. Moreover, while actual funding fell by another 2 percent in FY 1998, it then grew by 5.6 percent in FY 1999. Thus, the FY 1999 budget was actually about 15 percent below the FY 1992 level, compared to a projected 19 percent reduction under the last Bush plan.

A year-by-year comparison of projected funding under the last Bush plan and actual funding levels confirms that the United States ended up spending almost exactly the same amount under Clinton as recommended in the last Bush budget for the FY 1994-99 period, a total of $1.72 trillion (in FY 2001 dollars).

Congress Added 3 Percent to Clinton Budgets
To some extent comparing actual funding for defense with the 1993 Bush plan is unfair. It is possible, for example, that had President Bush been re-elected in 1992 and been succeeded by another Republican president, his original plan would have been adjusted upward—perhaps in response to improvements in the overall budget outlook or to a reevaluation of strategic considerations.

Indeed, this is what happened under the Clinton Administration. The level of funding for defense projected under the first Clinton defense plan, released in 1993, was about 5 percent below the level called for in the last Bush defense plan. In later years, the Clinton Administration on several occasions made upward adjustments to the budget levels projected in its defense plan.

However, based on Congress’ record of the past six years, since the Republican Party took control of both the House and Senate, it seems unlikely that substantially more would have been provided for defense in the 1990s had the White House been occupied by a Republican. Altogether, Congress has added about $50 billion to the Clinton Administration’s defense budget requests over the FY 1996-01 period. That amounts to only about 3 percent of the $1.71 trillion total provided. Moreover, Congress’ own annual spending plans over this period have not called for major long-term increases in funding for defense. The CBR, which lays out Congress’ overall spending plan (typically for the next five years) is a purely congressional document not subject to presidential control or a veto. Over the FY 1996-01 period, the various CBRs passed by Congress have generally called for adding only about 1 percent to the Clinton Administration’s own defense plan. The fact that these CBRs have not included major long-term increases in funding for defense reflects, among other factors, the critical importance placed on deficit reduction and, especially over the past few years, tax cuts within the Republican majority in Congress.

Spending on Contingency Operations
Even if it is true that the defense topline of the past eight years would have been roughly the same under a Republican Administration, a case could be made that the funding provided would have been spent somewhat differently. In particular, it might be argued that a Republican president would not have used the US military in as many contingency operations as has President Clinton. This might, for example, have freed up more funding for weapons modernization. Congress’ support for many of these operations has been lukewarm at best. Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has asserted that US military deployments are “too often open-ended and lacking in clear objectives.” Bush advisor Condoleeza Rice has criticized the Clinton Administration for using the US military as a “global police force.”

However, spending on Clinton-initiated contingency operations has absorbed only a small fraction of DoD’s topline over the past eight years. Between FY 1993 and FY 2000, DoD incurred incremental costs for various contingency operations of about $27 billion. This represents only about 1 percent of total DoD funding over this period. To be sure, this may understate the full impact of these operations on DoD funding requirements. For example these costs do not include the higher pay raises provided over the past several years which, some argue, are needed in part to keep re-enlistment rates adequate in the face of the higher operational tempo caused by these operations. On the other hand, it is far from clear that significantly less funding would have been required for contingency operations over the past eight years under a Republican presidency. Almost $8 billion of the $27 billion provided since FY 1993 was for operations in Southwest Asia begun under the Bush Administration. Some of the $1.5 billion spent on operations in Somalia might also be fairly attributed to the Bush Administration, which first sent US troops to Somalia in December 1992. Likewise, it is unclear whether a Republican president would have necessarily refrained from deploying US military forces in Bosnia or Kosovo, along with Southwest Asia, by far the largest and most costly deployments of the past eight years. Former Senator Bob Dole, the Republican candidate for president in 1996, for example, was a strong supporter of US military action to defend the Kosovo Albanians against Serbian “ethnic cleansing” in the late 1990s. Future Defense Funding Levels: Little Difference Between Parties
As indicated above, the decision to cut defense budgets in the 1990s was clearly a bipartisan one, driven in large part by the disappearance of the Soviet Union and a bipartisan desire to bring the federal deficit under control. Over the past several years, the federal budget outlook has improved dramatically. It is as yet unclear how this improved outlook will affect the budget levels for defense supported by either Democrats or Republicans.

However, the limited evidence available suggests that neither party is yet ready to support a major increase in funding for defense. Under the last Clinton Administration defense plan (released in February 2000) defense budgets are projected to remain essentially flat in real terms over the next five years. And the latest CBR, passed in April, would provide essentially the same level of funding as the administration’s plan—providing 1.5 percent more in FY 2001 and less than one-tenth of 1 percent more over the FY 2002-05 period.

Both parties appear to place higher priority on other policy initiatives, such as protecting Social Security and Medicare, expanding some entitlement benefits, increasing funding for some domestic programs like education, and cutting taxes. The two parties differ considerably in the relative importance attached to these other priorities (e.g., entitlement expansion versus tax cuts), but the effect on the prospects for a major increase in defense spending may be the same. In other words, while the bipartisan consensus for cutting defense that characterized most of the 1990s may be over, neither party has as yet shown a clear commitment to funding major increases in funding of the kind being called for by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Spending Smarter
Fortunately, the effectiveness with which DoD addresses the most pressing US security challenges in the future is likely to rest much more on how wisely, rather than how much, it spends. Indeed, at least until the US military begins to transform itself so that it is better able to meet the very different, and far more serious, challenges likely to emerge over the long term, the value of a substantial boost in defense funding may be questionable.

The next administration needs to move beyond the current highly politicized debate over military spending and near-term readiness and begin addressing some more fundamental and critical questions: Is the US military “ready” for the right kinds of missions and challenges? And, perhaps most importantly, what are we doing to ensure that the US military of tomorrow will be ready for the very different kinds of challenges that will likely emerge over the next several decades?

For more information, contact Steven Kosiak or Elizabeth Heeter at (202) 331-7990.