STRATEGY, FORCES AND BUDGETS:

DOMINANT INFLUENCES IN EXECUTIVE DECISION MAKING,

POST-COLD WAR, 1989-91

Don M. Snider

February 1993
*****

The views expressed in this report are those of the author

and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of

the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the

U.S. Government. This report is approved for public release;

distribution unlimited.

*****

Comments pertaining to this publication are invited and

should be forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute,

U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013-5050. 

Comments also may be conveyed by calling the Conference

Organizer, Dr. Gary L. Guertner, commercial (717) 245-3108 or DSN

242-3108.

This paper was originally presented at the U.S. Army War

College Fourth Annual Strategy Conference held February 24-25,

1993, with the assistance of the Office of Net Assessment. The

Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to publish the paper as

part of its Conference Series.
FOREWORD

The successful application of national military strategy

depends upon the existence of a balanced, flexible military

establishment; a national force structured, manned, equipped, and

trained to execute the broad range of potential missions that

exist in the post-cold war world.

With this in mind, the national leaders of the previous

administration developed a concept for a military that was

considerably smaller; but well-equipped, highly trained, and

capable of rapid response to a number of probable scenarios in

the final decade of the 20th century.

The author's masterful assessment of the processes by which

these plans for the future state of America's armed forces were

developed is a valuable addition to the literature on strategy

formulation. Working with a great deal of original source

material, he is able to illuminate the critical series of events

that resulted in the development of the National Military

Strategy of the United States and the "base force." He comments

upon the roles played throughout this process by the Secretary of

Defense, by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and by the

Service Chiefs. He assesses the extent to which the "build-down"

has been achieved since the concept was approved, and how the

process was affected by the Gulf War, domestic needs, and, to a

lesser degree, by a change in administrations.

This study, prepared for the U.S. Army War College Fourth

Annual Conference on Strategy, is a timely addition to the

Professional Readings in Military Strategy Series.

WILLIAM A. STOFFT

Major General, U.S. Army

Commandant
STRATEGY, FORCES AND BUDGETS:

DOMINANT INFLUENCES IN EXECUTIVE DECISION MAKING,

POST-COLD WAR, 1989-91

Introduction.

This study will present, using the process-tracking

methodology of George and McKeown,1

 the executive decision making

of the Bush administration during the 1989-90 period. During

this period the administration decided "that by 1995 our security

needs can be met by an active force 25 percent smaller than

today's."2 This early public statement was an indication of a

set of major decisions made by the administration to effect a

defense draw-down for the post-cold war era, decisions on both

military strategy and the forces needed to execute it.

Most of this decision making took place during the fall of

1989 and the spring and summer of 1990. Within the executive

branch the decision making to be investigated took place

simultaneously at multiple levels, from the individual military

departments at the lowest level to the executive office of the

President at the highest level. During this same period, there

were also important interactions with the Congress which had

quite significant influences on the decisions taken within the

executive branch.

From this period, four events, or series of events, have

been selected around which to report the results of this

research. These events are:

• Decision making by the Chairman and the Joint Staff, and

the Joint Chiefs;

• Decision making within the Office of the Secretary of

Defense (OSD) by the Secretary, the Under Secretary of Defense

for Policy, and his staff;

• Negotiations between the Executive and Congress leading to

the Budget Act of 1990; and,

• Influences of the Gulf War on decision making for the

defense build-down.

Recalling from George and McKeown that process tracking

"involves both an attempt to reconstruct actors' definitions of

the situation and an attempt to develop a theory of action,"3

much of what is presented here is the result of personal

interviews with individuals involved in the decision processes. 

In each case that an interview is cited, appropriate decision

documents have been reviewed, either before the interview or

subsequently, and the verbal responses correlated with the

written documentation.
The New Military Strategy and Base Force.

Before proceeding to the four events themselves, it will be

helpful for purposes of context to present in some detail the

final results of the decisions taken, both in terms of military

strategy and the forces planned for its execution by the end of

FY95. The results are known and documented in the literature,

both professional and public, as the National Military Strategy

of the United States, and the "base force." There are several

renditions of the base force, owing to modifications over time,

but the most appropriate for purposes of this study on decision

making is the one documented in official testimony shortly after

the executive branch decisions were completed in the summer and

fall of 1990.

As the research for this case study makes clear, two

challenges kept appearing before those planning the post-cold war

defense restructuring and build-down: the need to answer the

urgent calls for a "peace dividend," and the need to understand

the rapidly changing security environment well enough to choose

the strategy and forces needed in the future. Obviously, these

challenges were inherently antagonistic, producing repeated

tensions among individuals, decision-making processes and

institutions. Wanting others to be aware of the risks involved

if these tensions were resolved incorrectly, Secretary Richard

Cheney often quoted during this period from Forrestal's first

report to Congress in 1948:

We scrapped our war machine, mightiest in the history

of the world, in a manifestation of confidence that we

should not need it any longer. Our quick and complete

demobilization was a testimonial to our good will

rather than to our good sense. International frictions

which constitute a threat to our national security and

to the peace of the world have since compelled us to

strengthen our armed forces for self-protection.4

It is worth noting that nowhere in the research conducted

for this project have I come across the word "demobilization"

used in any official statement by members of the administration,

nor was it offered voluntarily in any interview. The mind-set

was clearly not one of "demobilizing" after the cold war.

The decisions taken by the Bush administration to effect a

build-down of defense capabilities produced a new military

strategy quite different from that inherited from their

predecessors, one which had been maintained largely intact

throughout the cold war. As summarized in 1989 by Admiral

William Crowe, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, U.S. military

strategy coming out of the cold war was based on deterrence of

Soviet aggression and coercion against America and its allies

across the conflict spectrum.5

 The strategy was global in

orientation, clearly focused on the military capabilities of the

Soviet Union, and retained the basic features of containment as
envisioned in NSC-68 almost four decades earlier: a credible

nuclear deterrent and large numbers of standing conventional

forces, many deployed overseas in allied coalitions to provide a

"forward defense" around the perimeter of Soviet expansion.6

While noting "recent changes in Soviet rhetoric implying a

gradual but fundamental change in doctrine and strategy," the

strategy Crowe left nonetheless called for increases in defense

expenditures of 2 percent real per annum for FY90-94, "following

four years in which real growth has declined by 11 percent."7

In contrast, the military strategy designed by the Bush

administration for the post-cold war transition period required

fewer resources, was regional rather than global in its

orientation, was no longer focused on the military capabilities

of the Soviet Union and its former Warsaw Pact allies, and

contained few of the strategic concepts of the former cold war

strategy. The new strategy was built around four central

strategic concepts: strategic deterrence and defense, forward

presence, crisis response, and reconstitution. Of these, only

the first was a carryover from the cold war--a prudent necessity

in view of the time it would take to dismantle the results of

four decades of intermittent arms races.8

The remaining three concepts were new to U.S. military

strategy. "Forward presence," as explained by administration

officials, is quite different from the cold war idea of "forward

defense," but the administration had a difficult time

articulating the difference in a politically relevant manner. 

The administration understood early on that the fundamental

changes in the Soviet Union meant that its ability to project

conventional military power outside the former empire, and even

outside the Russian republic, was in severe decline.9 The need

for forward defense in the context of the containment strategy no

longer existed.

Even so, the uncertain future of the former Soviet Union,

the changing nature of regional threats, the existence of global

U.S. interests, and the necessity for U.S. leadership all

required that some number of U.S. military forces be kept

actively and visibly engaged in various regions of the world.10

In early public statements this need was associated with the

political objective of maintaining the existing, worldwide

network of alliances, and the ability of the military (often, a

"robust Navy") to lend credibility to those commitments.11 After

much internal debate as to the appropriate term to use--"forward

presence," "active presence," and "peacetime engagement" were all

candidates at one time--"forward presence" was selected.12

The second concept, "crisis response," was the central

concept of the new strategy, as the Gulf War was demonstrating at

the same time that administration officials were testifying.13

Without using the words, the administration was articulating a

power-projection strategy: the ability to deploy swiftly as

needed from the United States to regions of U.S. interest a
formidable array of conventional combat power. In contrast to

the cold war strategy, which focused on the reinforcement of

Europe via a contested North Atlantic sea line of communication,

this concept focused on multiple regions in the context of

unthreatened air and sea lines of communication. Further, it was

anticipated that there might not be U.S. "forward presence"

forces in the crisis region to be reinforced. Thus forced-entry

capabilities became more important.

The emphasis on the word "crisis" is also important,

conveying the sense, as subsequently has been true, that U.S.

military power should be available for a broad spectrum of

regional situations, particularly those short of major regional

war. It also implied that forces should be rapidly deployable to

any of these regions--"strategic agility" in the language of the

new strategy-creating increased demands for forces to provide

global mobility.

Last was the concept of "reconstitution." Fundamentally it

was, and is, the "hedge" against uncertainty within the strategy.

 It was designed to "forestall any potential adversary from

competing militarily with the United States by demonstrating the

capability to provide, if needed, a global warfighting

capability."14 It required the capability to form, train and

field new fighting forces, initially from cadre-type units, as

well as activating the industrial base on a large scale. As will

be discussed in more detail later, this new element of U.S.

strategy was the result of two factors: the need to hedge against

the unknown future in Russia and the republics of the former

Soviet Union; and the need to articulate a militarily valid,

post-cold war mission for the very large and politically

influential reserve forces of the United States.15

Along with these four central concepts, supporting

principles of strategy were also articulated: readiness,

collective security, arms control, maritime and aerospace

superiority, strategic agility, technological superiority and

decisive force.16 Of these, only the last can be said to be new

to U.S. strategic doctrine. And, as was demonstrated in the U.S.

response for the Gulf War and subsequently in Somalia, to the

leadership of the Bush administration it was more than strategic

rhetoric.

To be able to execute this strategy with a defense

"structure that is consistent with the budget guidance we have

been given, consistent with our national security needs, and

consistent with the need to make sure that our future forces are

as proud, capable, and professional as the force (now) in

Operation Desert Storm," administration decision makers

ultimately arrived at the "base force" and presented it

officially in January 1991 as part of the FY92-97 defense program

to be authorized and funded by the Congress.17

In administration presentations the base force was
consistently subdivided into four conceptual force packages that

were sized on major missions or regions of U.S. strategic

interest--strategic forces, Atlantic forces, Pacific forces, and

contingency forces.18 As will be discussed later, each package

was in fact derived from a thorough analysis of future U.S.

interests in the mission or region in question, and known and

anticipated changes in that specific security environment

including anticipated results of the on-going Conventional Forces

in Europe (CFE) negotiations and the Strategic Arms Reductions

Talks (START 1). The intent was to demonstrate a strong linkage

between strategic planning and requests for resources,

particularly in a time of rapid and major change in the security

environment.19

In addition to these four conceptual force packages (the

word "conceptual" was used intentionally, but unsuccessfully, to

preclude association of the packages with the real-world Unified

Command Plan for the assignment of responsibilities to the

warfighting Commanders-in-Chief), the administration also

consistently articulated a need for four supporting capabilities:

strategic mobility; the use of space for early warning and

intelligence, surveillance, weather, navigation, and command and

control; reconstitution of additional forces as needed; and

research and development (R&D) to maintain the U.S. technological

lead in critical military applications.20

As shown in Table 1, when aggregated, the forces from these

conceptual packages represented a significant, somewhat greater

than 25 percent, reduction in U.S. conventional forces by the end

of FY95, the point at which the administration envisioned the

build-down to be complete. Given this new military strategy and

"base force" as final administration decisions, what decisionmaking processes lay behind them?

 FY 1990 FY 1995

Army Divisions 28 (18 active) 18 (12 active)

Aircraft Carriers 13 12

Carrier Air Wings 15 (13 active) 13 (11 active)

Battle Force Ships 545 451

Tactical Fighter Wings 36 (24 active) 26 (15 active)

Strategic Bombers 268 181

Table 1. The Base Force: 25 Percent Reduction

Decision Making by General Powell and the Joint Staff, and the

Joint Chiefs of Staff.

When Colin Powell returned to Washington to assume duties as

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on October 1, 1989, he had been

out of the nation's capital for only 8 months since leaving the
White House as President Reagan's National Security Advisor. In

that earlier position, he had participated directly in the U.S.

interpretation of events surrounding the end of the cold war--

glasnost, the election of President Gorbachev and the initiation

of his domestic reforms, the withdrawal of Soviet forces from

Afghanistan, first elections in Poland, and the announcement and

initiation of unilateral Soviet withdrawals from eastern Europe.

 He had also participated in arms control negotiations, both

among the U.S. interagency committees as well as with the

Soviets, that led to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and

to two other Presidential summits to narrow differences in the

START I and

CFE talks.

Obviously, he was strongly influenced by what he understood

to be changing in the world, views that initially often put him

outside the mainstream of thought of political appointees and

other military leaders in the Bush administration.21 In the early

summer of 1988, several months before returning as Chairman, he

had expressed some of these prescient views to Army colleagues:

There are those who see President Mikhail S. Gorbachev

as some sort of a Machiavellian schemer, able to

orchestrate the mammoth Soviet bureaucracy toward a

clever plan to dismember the NATO Alliance . . . but I

submit the real imperative for his programs is Soviet

domestic and foreign policy impotence and failure . . .

Mr. Gorbachev, who should know, has no more idea where

the Soviet Union is headed than anyone in this room. 

He has hopes, he has a program, and as he said at

Governor's Island last year, he is playing real

politics. But he doesn't know the outcome. Politics

is the art of the possible. The possible in the Soviet

Union is very different from the possible in America .

. . . The Soviet system is bankrupt and President

Gorbachev is the trustee. It's difficult to imagine

anyone even envying his position, let alone actively

pursuing it.22

His insights were not limited to the foreign security

environment. Turning to the U.S. domestic scene, he continued:

What about our own country? What about the change in

America--even before Mr Gorbachev came along? We've

had a changing public consensus in America since about

1986 . . . With domestic problems well-publicized,

procurement scandals, economic and trade problems, and

an ever-increasing national debt, the public consensus

began to change . . . By the mid-eighties, Congress

could and did legislate negative growth in the defense

budget. Congress reflected the national consensus, and

all this happened before Gorbachev . . . The bottom

line is that we can't act in the 1990s as if we had the

same consensus of the early 1980s, or as if the
geopolitical situation is the same . . . I believe we

are going to have to make some hard choices . . . (The

American public will) support us, but not at any cost.

 They don't see that as reasonable under the changed

circumstances in the world . . . Remember, the future

ain't what it used to be.

This effort "to scare the Army and its industrial partners"

came to naught, however. When Powell arrived back at the

Pentagon in October 1989, he found "No change. Even though I

thought the greatest challenge facing us was the controlled

build-down of U.S. capabilities, the services offered plenty of

evidence as to why they didn't need to do it."23

Several quotations and a list of events in which he had

personally shaped national policy do not convey adequately the

scope nor the depth of strategic vision which General Powell

brought to his new position.24 Those who served with him daily in

those positions, however, became well aware of how inquisitive he

was as to what was really going on in the Soviet Union, how

thoroughly he supplemented U.S. intelligence with extensive

travel and insights from well-placed foreign sources, and how

wide his network of personal contacts was, both in and out of

government, both here and abroad.

In addition to a unique vision of what was transpiring in

the Soviet Union and regionally, and what that meant for the

nation's future, General Colin Powell also started his tenure as

Chairman with significantly greater authorities (GoldwaterNichols legislation of 1986) than any previous incoming

Chairman.25 Admiral Crowe had used some of the new authorities,

but their arrival midway through his tenure, after he had

established a collegial leadership style with the other Chiefs,

left many to be used for the first time by Powell. This he did

with alacrity.

Within weeks after his arrival he had the Joint Staff

working intensely on three issues: revised staff procedures that

implemented the independence of the Director and the Joint Staff

under the Chairman, and which precluded service positions from

holding up progress or forcing compromises on staff actions; a

J/5-led review of the joint planning processes to shorten the

cycles used during the cold war and to focus planning away from

the declining Soviet threat;26 and lastly, a closely held study

by the J/8 that would flesh out Powell's "view of the 1990s," a

phrase which shortly became the title for the briefing produced

by the study.

Thus, in a series of rapid and complementary actions, Powell

had freed the Joint Staff from service interference (some

concerned officers would say even from service influence), placed

planning for the transition from the cold war at the top of his

action list, and placed himself to lead it. He was embarked on

an effort to "plan for a future that was going to be
fundamentally different from anything we had seen for the

preceding 45 years."27

External to the Pentagon, however, the pace of change in the

world in the fall of 1989 would not allow much time for

contemplative planning. After weeks of uncontrollable

exfiltration, the Berlin Wall opened to the human exodus on

November 9, a coup in the Philippines failed on December 1, the

Central America peace accords were signed on December 12, and

after an earlier "false start," U.S. forces invaded Panama in

Operation JUST CAUSE on December 20. "Instead of being able to

focus on the build-down, all I got was wars."28

For the purpose of this case study, the "View of the 1990s"

study was the important item, since it became the "living"

briefing that Powell used repeatedly to convey his strategic

vision--first to his staff, then to Secretary cheney, the Service

Chiefs, the CINCs, and senior officials in OSD, then to the

President, and, after the budget negotiations of 1990, to the

Congress (see the chronology in Appendix B). by March 1990 it

had become his text for repeated public statements, both in

official testimony and in public fora, stateside and overseas.

Powell was well aware "that there is but one currency in the

Washington policy process--consensus. With it you have a chance

for effective policy, without it you have nothing but hollow,

declaratory policy."29 His view of the s was that around which

he attempted, largely successfully, to build a politically

effective consensus. But first the view needed to be fleshed

out, and that was the task given to the J/8, Major General John

Robinson, and his small group of analysts drawn from across the

Joint Staff.

Powell's initial guidance to Robinson's group was quite

expansive. He explained his understanding of the changes

occurring in the world, and then asked them to determine the

answer to an anticipated question from the Secretary or the

President, "What will it take for the United States to remain a

superpower after the cold war is over in terms of U.S. military

capabilities, forces, and alliance relationships? What will the

United States need to be able to do in the world, and how should

our military capabilities contribute to that? And remember, we

must be able to explain our needs to the American people--needs

that must be well below today's levels.30

There were many iterations and refinements over the weeks

and months, but the basic methodology remained the same: to

examine each region of the world in the mid-1990s in the context

of ongoing and anticipated change (e.g., a disintegrating Soviet

empire with a massive nuclear arsenal, democratization in many

regions of the world, rising ethnic nationalism, weapons

proliferation) and what Powell called "enduring principles"

(e.g., the necessity of future U.S. leadership among the

community of nations, the need for world-class conventional
military capabilities) and "enduring realities" (e.g., Soviet

nuclear weapons, continuing American political and economic

interests in the Atlantic and Pacific regions). From these

regional analyses, as well as from a concurrent review of the

strategic nuclear competition with the Soviet Union, the study

would identify "enduring defense needs," those answers to the

original questions Powell had anticipated from the Secretary and

the President.31

The results were new strategic concepts for regional

conflict, and an array of forces for each region, mixed by

capability (service), component (active or reserve), and location

(overseas or stateside) into force packages to meet the security

needs of the United States as a world power in 1995. (See

Appendix A.) The number and type of forces in each package

changed frequently, but not dramatically, as various views were

considered, reconsidered and incorporated for the next 6 months

until Cheney made the final decisions while negotiating with

Congress for the budget agreement of October 1990. In all cases,

however, the forces needed for Powell's "View of the 1990s"

represented significant reductions beyond the FY91 program then

being prepared within the Pentagon for presentation to Congress

in January 1990.

By late October 1989, Powell had discussed his vision with

the Secretary, and from November to January he gave briefings to

the service Chiefs and the unified Commanders-in-Chief, usually

in closed sessions. Initially, the service Chiefs disagreed with

the necessity for such a major restructuring and downsizing. The

idea of conceptual force packages for the Atlantic and Pacific

regions--traditional Navy theaters--did not even appeal to the

Navy Chief. However, after the Berlin Wall opened in November,

the rapidly changing situation and Powell's ability to persuade,

as well as "to hold the line," enabled him to lead the services

to consider major changes in their force structure, and unequal

changes at that.32 In November, the Secretary had him present it

to top defense policymakers at the Defense Planning and Resources

Board (DPRB). In December, he and the Secretary briefed the

President on the new strategic concepts and outlines of a

potential "base force" needed to execute it.

Thus Powell's initial strategic vision, sharpened by the

work of the Joint Staff and the give-and-take dialogues with

other senior policymakers, quickly highlighted what he believed

to be the "enduring defense needs" of the nation:

modern strategic nuclear forces that continue to deter

any nuclear attack against this nation or our allies,

an Atlantic force forward-deployed and here in the

United States to protect our interests across the

Atlantic, a Pacific force, modest in size, good return

on our investment, to make sure that we do not

disengage from the Pacific. And, finally, a

contingency force for the unknown.33
In the fall of 1989, however, the uniformed military were

not the only people in the Pentagon, or in Washington for that

matter, anticipating important decisions on the future defense

needs of the nation. Secretary Richard Cheney moved planning

within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) into high

gear shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall:

I wanted to get on top of the debate that was about to

begin on the future U.S. defense needs. I had decided

with Colin and the Chiefs that we needed to lead on the

debate with Congress... we would not argue that no

change was needed, but instead influence the coming

reallocation of resources by defining the terms of the

debate.34

Participation by the Service Chiefs and the Unified Commandersin-Chief.

Very early in the Bush administration, in February 1989

before Cheney or Powell were on board, the Joint Chiefs met in

the Oval Off ice with the President and his economic advisors 

to discuss resources for defense for FY89.35 Though not a

formal meeting of the National Security Council, present were

Sununu, Scowcroft, Brady, Baker, Darman, the President, and the

Chiefs. The topic of the meeting was a "flat budget" for

defense, an idea that the President's economic advisors had

recommended earlier. The proposal meant an administration budget

proposal to Congress with no real growth in the FY89-94 defense

program, and under some interpretations, a real decline annually

by the current rate of inflation.

The Chiefs objected adamantly to the proposal, arguing that

it was too extreme for orderly change. They proposed instead

defense budgets with 2 percent annual real growth, a continuation

of their recommendation the last year of the Reagan

administration.

The meeting did not go well for the Chiefs. If Baker and

Scowcroft had not supported the Chiefs by citing uncertainties in

the Soviet Union, the President's economic team would likely have

carried the day. Instead, the President decided on a budget ramp

of 0 percent, 1 percent, 1 percent, 2 percent, 2 percent, over

the years of the defense program. This meant a "flat budget" for

one year while the situation clarified, with subsequent years to

be planned with small real growth. Perceptions varied among the

Chiefs as to the impact of these reductions: the "order of

anguish," as described by one participant was Navy, Marine Corps,

Army, Air Force.36 But even then, few believed the proposal

would hold after the first year.

The message of this meeting was clear: the Bush

administration was going to decrease defense spending. The only
question was how fast. This was in contrast to the Reagan era,

where the Congress was the one causing real decline in defense

expenditure since FY86.

Air Force Participation.37

Even prior to the "flat budget" meeting, the Air Force had

been planning for the post-cold war build-down. Part of the Air

Force plans had been implemented in the programmatic world-force

structure had been cut in future years to pay for modernization

programs that had also been reduced in scope and pace. Tactical

fighter wings (TFW) had been reduced from 44 to 37 to accommodate

reduced modernization of the Advanced Tactical Fighter, C-17, F15E, B2 and the Peacekeeper missile.

With Gorbachev's announced withdrawals from Eastern Europe,

Air Force plans for a smaller post-cold war posture accelerated.

 They calculated that, after Soviet withdrawals, the reduced

threat to U.S. global objectives would allow eliminating eleven

TFW. This, in turn, would allow further reductions in the scope

and pace of modernization, while protecting manpower priorities--

a pace of reduction that "did not do violence to people and the

future quality of the force."38

In the fall of 1989, while Powell's view of the s was

underway, Powell and the Chiefs held several executive sessions

on how to present to civilian leaders and to the Congress the

post-cold war requirements for conventional forces. With the

canonical threat disappearing, the Air Force objectives in these

discussions were three: don't let the Congress dictate a fast

build-down so rapid that the future force is impaired; don't

throw away the billions already invested in modernization; and,

find a reasonable budget level, a "new peg," for the 2-3 years

necessary for the global situation to stabilize.

The strategy arrived at was to offer a level and pace of

reduction which met future military needs while responding to the

political need for a substantial "peace dividend." (Concern with

congressional "impatience" was real from the Air Force's

perspective.) To the Air force, this could have been a 40 percent

reduction in conventional forces, if the pace of reduction was

acceptable, which their planning showed to be 7-8 years. The

other services disagreed with the depth of reductions for

different reasons, but all agreed that the pace of reductions was

critical, drawing heavily on their different experiences coming

out of the post-Vietnam reductions.39

From the Air Force perspective, Powell's "View of the 1990s"

study, when completed, would be the "strawman" from which they

would all work, even though it was being done by the Joint Staff

with little service participation. It provided an authoritative

approach to what needed to be done, freeing service leadership

from internal criticism for reducing capabilities. And it worked
out about that way, with specific Air Force concerns being

discussed later between the Service Chief and Powell. The Air

Force basically supported the "base force" as planned by Powell's

group, differing only over the scope of some modernization

programs, differences which were accommodated initially but which

lost out later in the continuing adjustments.

Army Participation.40

Army preparations for the reduction of capabilities after

the cold war began in earnest in 1988, drawing from a closely

held internal effort known as the Antaeus study. By late 1987,

it was clear to Army leaders that, given declining real defense

budgets and the location of Army forces worldwide, the overseas

forces were likely to be reduced or even eliminated. The focus

of the Antaeus study was to provide options for future Army force

postures for discussions with the regional CINCS41 and with the

various factions within the Army. This it did, also providing

insights as to the rate of manpower reductions, 35,000 per fiscal

year, that could be sustained without drastically reducing the

readiness of Army units worldwide.42

However, as the Soviet withdrawals started in Eastern Europe

and the wall opened a year later, the Army reduced funds for

procurement and research and development in the FY90 and FY91

budget submissions rather than cut force structure. This was due

in part to the uncertainty of the CFE negotiations which would

subsequently define the limits of future U.S. forces in Europe,

and due in part to the fact that much of the Army's research and

procurement was then focused on providing continued "overmatch"

to a Soviet threat that was receding, albeit uncertainly. The

Army Chief, General Vuono, also believed that while threats may

be abating in Europe, other threats and emerging regional

instabilities necessitated a range of ready, conventional ground

forces, as Operation JUST CAUSE (Panama) demonstrated in late

1989.

As the new strategy and the base force were developed in

late 1989 and early 1990, most Army input into the decisions was

done at the top by Vuono to Powell and the Army Secretary

directly to Cheney or Atwood. While considering the Joint

Staff's analytical work "not very good," Vuono could go "head-tohead" with Powell on the emerging base force since it was in the

same range of options already analyzed by the Army and discussed

with the regional CINCS. But he needed and received support from

the European CINC to retain in the base force in Europe a

"capable Corps" of 150,000 personnel, a force somewhat larger

than originally proposed by the Joint Staff and Powell. But

Vuono accepted and supported Powell's contention that consensus

among the Chiefs and CINCs was essential to successful defense

before Congress of the "floor" force structure they believed

necessary for the future.
In the end, Vuono "got most of what he wanted," and

considered the new strategy and base force, and particularly the

pace of reductions from FY92-95, as a sound plan--providing for

the build-down a good "way station in FY95" from which decisions

could then be made with flexibility to continue or not. 

Unfortunately, Army leaders were not able to convince their

reserve components that the plan was also good for them. Thus,

during the subsequent FY93 budget process, the administration in

the persons of Cheney and Powell would take on, again

unsuccessfully, the politically powerful reserve interests in

Congress.

Navy Participation.43

Unlike the Air Force, in late 1988 the Navy did not see in

Gorbachev's reforms and his announced withdrawals from Eastern

Europe the indications of major changes in Soviet naval

capabilities and aspirations.

In contrast, during Admiral Trost's visit to the Soviet

Union in October 1989 (just as Powell was arriving in

Washington), he found their shipbuilding program for the nuclear

cruiser stopped, but other shipbuilding and modernization

programs continuing for both carriers and submarines. He also

confirmed for the first time that the MIG 29 was being adapted

for carrier launches, and that the Soviet Navy had been given

continued priority for Russian conscripts assuring the quality of

manpower needed to achieve the Soviet goal of a fully modernized,

but smaller, naval force by the mid 1990s. He left the Soviet

Union with the clear impression that while the country was

suffering major economic problems that would eventually affect

their military capabilities, their naval forces would continue to

modernize, presenting "massive capabilities" for the foreseeable

future. They, the Soviet naval forces at least, had not yet

"backed off" from the cold war.

When Powell presented to the Chiefs later in the fall his

"View of the 1990s" brief and the initial outlines of the base

force, Trost agreed with the strategic emphasis on forward

presence, a traditional mission of U.S. naval forces. But he

thought the naval forces recommended were somewhat too small for

the long-run rotational base needed. Of equal concern to the

numbers was the fact that the Navy had not been a part of the

development of the force before it was "laid on the table" with

the strategy, and thus was not privy to the analysis that

validated its size and capabilities.

As the discussions continued over a number of weeks,

Powell's contention to the Chiefs that the "base force" was all

they collectively would be able to defend before Congress was

reinforced by Trost's own soundings. While preparing to testify

on the FY91 defense program in early March, both Senators Warner

and Nunn emphasized to Trost that the Chiefs needed to "come up
here with a different story this year, its time to reduce." After

his own testimony in April, which was less than well received, it

was apparent that the base force was the best the administration

was going to do, notwithstanding the potential for dangerous

events in the Soviet Union. With "Powell and Cheney in sync" on

the issue and defense supporters in Congress also seeking

reductions, Trost reluctantly abandoned earlier plans for the

Navy, concentrating on the defense of the base force.

Summarizing the services' participation in administration

decision making, several points are clear. First, for various

reasons their role in the major decisions was marginal. As one

chief noted, "the planning for the defense build-down was a case

of someone determining in advance what was needed, and then

seeing that the result was produced."44 Nonetheless, all felt

keenly the pressure from Congress to reduce, and for the Army and

the Navy this was earlier than they judged desirable given the

uncertainty remaining in Eurasia. Second, the existence and

influence of unmotivated perceptual biases built up over the cold

war about Soviet capabilities and intentions were abundantly

evident as they interpreted unfolding events in 1988 and 1989. 

Last, other biases to defend the future of their services, some

motivated by their responsibilities of long-term institutional

stewardship, were set aside in a collective recognition that the

administration was going forward united. "We knew if Cheney

offered the Congress a 40 percent reduction, it would have been

pocketed while they asked for more. Therefore we supported the

25 percent number."45

Decision Making Within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

At the OSD level the process of decision making for the

build-down began with the arrival of the Bush administration. 

When Ambassador Paul Wolfowitz was named in January 1988 as the

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, he brought a deep

background in political-military strategy in the Asian region,

having previously served as the Director of Policy Planning at

the State Department, the Assistant Secretary of State for East

Asian and Pacific Affairs, and as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic

of Indonesia.

While the Tower nomination was being reviewed and ultimately

defeated,46 Wolfowitz led, as the senior member of the new

defense team, the OSD group that participated in the initial

national security strategy review of the administration. Known

as the "NSR-12" studies, after the number of the presidential

directive that initiated them, the review of defense policy was

only a part of a larger series prepared for the National Security

Council and covering U.S. security policy toward all regions of

the world. All reviews were conducted from January to June 1989

by interagency committees, chaired either by a senior director of

the NSC staff or by the senior leadership of the lead executive

agency. In the case of the defense review there were two
principal committees, one for future arms control negotiations,

strategic forces, and targeting, chaired by Arnold Kanter of the

NSC staff; the other on defense policy, strategy, and

nonstrategic forces, chaired by Wolfowitz.

Though never published in its entirety, at least six results

of the NSR-12 review were influential later as accepted premises

for strategic formulations by OSD, Powell, and the Joint Staff:

(1) the acceptance that, as often stated by Brent Scowcroft,

"this government is financially broke," and that, therefore,

"huge reductions" would have to be made in future defense plans

and programs; (2) the understanding that the anticipated defense

reductions should be executed in a "build-down"47 that provided

assurance to both sides by linking force reductions to completed

negotiations on both strategic nuclear and conventional forces;

(3) that U.S. leadership would be paramount in producing such

agreements, particularly among European allies; (4) that cold war

alliances should be supported and maintained until the transition

was clarified; (5) that future Soviet expansionism was very

unlikely, and the eroding bilateral structure of global,

international competition meant that strategic analysis should

proceed on a region-by-region basis; and (6) an understanding

that, at the regional level, the "distance between a superpower

and an aspiring regional hegemon had been greatly

foreshortened,"48 making U.S. superiority in high-tech

conventional weaponry a key competitive advantage for the decade

ahead.49

Given the turbulence in the security environment during the

early portion of the transition from the cold war, particularly

in Eastern Europe, it cannot be said that there was unanimity

among senior appointees on these premises. Neither was the open

nature of the reviews, with all applicable agencies

participating, conducive to rapid closure on differing views. 

One of the major benefits of the reviews, however, was the rapid

and broad dissemination of these premises among the second and

third level of political appointees, as well as among a portion

of the permanent bureaucracy.50 Ultimately these premises

appeared in print in two places: the classified Defense Planning

Guidance (revised) of November 1989, and the unclassified

Presidential report to Congress in March 1990 51 on U.S. national

security strategy.51

These premises also laid the foundation in early 1990 for

development of a new defense strategy by Wolfowitz and a team of

OSD staffers. Under Cheney's direction, the effort by Wolfowitz

was to parallel that of Powell and the Joint Staff, but both were

to be closely held, separated, and with no participation by

outside agencies (a difficult feat indeed within the Pentagon). 

The only interaction between the groups until their efforts were

completed was between Powell and Wolfowitz themselves.

The OSD planning effort, headed by Scotter Libby,

Wolfowitz's principal deputy, and Dale Vesser (a retired
Lieutenant General, former J-5 of the Joint Staff) used a

somewhat different and more broad methodology than did the Joint

Staff under Powell. Rather than focusing essentially at the

regional level, Vesser's group initially analyzed global trends

and developed alternative futures for the global security

environment. For each future they then developed a separate

military strategy. In their view, the transition from the cold

war would produce, by the end of the century, a relatively benign

world of "competitive growth," a world dominated by a "troubled

third world" particularly in the Middle East, or a world

dominated by a turbulent Soviet Union (later, Russia) keeping

Eastern Europe, and perhaps Western Europe, "tense and

unsettled."52

For each of these future environments, defined by a unique

set of assumptions as to progress on START and CFE negotiations,

reforms in the Soviet Union, etc., a "best" strategy and

derivative set of military capabilities were developed. For the

world of benign competition, it was believed that a "crisis

response/reconstitution" strategy to respond from the United

States to regional crises was the major determinant of future

military needs. In this future, significant reductions could be

made from current overseas deployments, and much of the force

structure in the United States could be placed in the reserves,

to be "reconstituted" if needed. The "troubled third world"

future would require larger capabilities, particularly for power

projection, coupled with some continued military presence

overseas in regions of vital U.S. interests. The world dominated

by a "turbulent Soviet Union," which assumed little progress on

internal economic and political reforms, required a significant

U.S. presence in Western Europe as hedge to uncertainty produced

by the Russians, and as a reassurance to allies in the region. 

Each future had, in addition, a unique set of strategic force

capabilities designed for that particular future.

Since there was no longer one known threat against which to

formulate strategy and develop military requirements, the

analytic portion of the effort was focused on the three regions

of future interest: Eastern Europe and Russia, the Middle East,

and northeast Asia. The intent was to determine the military

capabilities--the core competencies--needed to cope in an

uncertain future with this range of potential contingencies.53

After developing each strategy and the needed military

capabilities, the U.S. forces were gamed in each region against

the military threat that the political military trend analysis

had shown to be potentially strongest. Then, to isolate the

risks involved in selecting one future, cross analyses were

conducted gaming the best force for each future against forces

anticipated in the alternative futures. Lastly, "wild cards"

(low-probability, high-danger futures) were gamed against each

best force, and sensitivity analyses were conducted on the

capability of each force if key assumptions were relaxed or

changed (e.g., strategic warning and call-up authorities for
reserve forces).

At this time cost was not a constraint on the OSD planning

effort. In all three futures, however, the force capabilities

needed were significantly less than had been requested in the

Fy91 budget submission only 2 months earlier. In fact, this

analysis eventually became one part of the basis for Cheney's

input to the budget negotiations in June 1990--the offering of an

"illustrative reduction" in conventional capabilities of 25

percent, discussed in the next section of this study.

As with the case of Powell and his "View of the 1990s," the

OSD group did not arrive quickly at a settled strategy or single

recommended force.54

 As he had done less than a year earlier when leading the OSD

group in the NSR-12 study, Wolfowitz's habit was to work all day

Saturday with the group, collegially exploring their work of the

past week and guiding future efforts. Out of several of these

long sessions, the concept of "reconstitution" was born as it was

finally known in the military strategy, largely due to

Wolfowitz's concern that the uncertainties and potential

reversibility of reforms in the Soviet Union necessitated an

explicit strategic hedge.55

In late May, these separate planning efforts under Powell

and Wolfowitz were presented at the DPRB in a 2-day session. 

Under Cheney's leadership, the DPRB was the forum through which

nonincremental change, as planned by Powell and Wolfowitz, was to

be introduced into the Defense Programming and Planning System

(PPBS) to facilitate service preparation of detailed programs and

budgets.56

The presentations showed a remarkable similarity in their

final analysis in both strategic concepts and in the range of

forces needed to execute a new regional strategy. Most of those

present who were interviewed for this study agree that after

Wolfowitz's extensive discussion on the first day of historical

examples of nonincremental changes, coupled with his staff's

analysis of the emerging situation, general consensus existed on

the regional strategy for the future. After Powell's

presentation of his "Views of the 1990s" and the forces needed, a

narrow range of force structure had been established for the

future, a range significantly below what was then planned and

very close to the 25 percent reductions later announced by the

President.

Early in June, accompanied again by Wolfowitz and Powell,

Cheney briefed the President in the Oval Office on the results of

the studies--both the strategy and the narrow range of forces

required. The President carefully reviewed the force structure

recommendations, particularly those involving potential

reductions overseas. Noting the historical nature of a regional

strategy for the post-cold war era, Scowcroft recommended a
Presidential speech to highlight the change.57 Shortly

thereafter, NSC staffers began preparing the text of the

President's speech for the Aspen Institute, which publicly 17

announced the anticipated 25 percent reductions.58 On June 19,

Secretary Cheney briefed budget negotiators on an "illustrative

plan" for savings that could be achieved by a 25 percent

reduction in conventional forces (see next event).

Even with the President's approval, however, the Pentagon

could not proceed in the PPBS process since there was no firm

fiscal guidance for the next year, nor was any in sight owing to

the gridlock between the White House and Congress.

Congressional Pressure on Executive Decision Making, January to

October 1990.

The decision making described thus far in the first two

events took place from October 1989 to June 1990, covering

executive branch development of the new military strategy and

force structure to be submitted to the Congress in January 1991

(the FY92-97 defense program). During this same period, while

Powell's group was fleshing out his view of the 1990s and

Wolfowitz was assembling his group for the same purpose, the

executive branch also submitted, in January 1990, the FY91

defense budget and FY92-96 program, requesting $306.9 billion in

new budget authority for FY91, but a decline of 2 percent per

year over the program when adjusted for inflation, the first such

negative request from an administration since 1974.59

Simply stated, the FY91 defense budget ran into a firestorm

of congressional resistance, a storm of bipartisan political

origin that eventually subsumed the defense debate and ended in

utter budgetary gridlock, budget negotiations and summits, and

eventually in the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990. There were

three main reasons for this firestorm.

First, the FY91 submission had been built by the executive

branch essentially on cold war planning assumptions. As the

chronology shows (see Appendix B), this was very early in the

series of events which define the end of the cold war (but 60

days after the dramatic opening of the Berlin Wall), and the

administration, for reasons discussed earlier, was unwilling to

proceed too rapidly with a build-down, particularly one that

might out-pace negotiated reductions in both strategic and

conventional forces. Additionally, as we have seen, planning

assumptions based on other than the cold war simply did not yet

exist within the Pentagon.

Second, the proposed reductions, even without a new strategy

and force proposal, were in areas not acceptable to Congress. 

The annual 2 percent real reduction for the period FY91-96 was to

be gained by omitting any new program starts, terminating 20

weapons programs, reducing some force structure,.streamlining
management practices, and closing 67 bases in the United States

and overseas. However, the base closures--an anathema to

Congress anytime, but more so during a recession--coupled with

continued high levels of requests for strategic nuclear programs

(SDI, the B-2 bomber, and the MX and Midgetman ICBMS), didn't set

well with those in Congress who already envisioned a hefty "peace

dividend" coming from somewhere other than their district or

state. Even defense supporters had strong messages to send to

the Pentagon, including Rep. Les Aspin ("I think that you can now

get an arms control agreement with the Soviets without having a

robust defense program because what's driving them to arms

control is a desperate economy, rather than what we're doing on

our side"); Rep. Dave McCurdy ("It's clear we have an opportunity

to make major cuts in strategic weapons, whether or not Gorbachev

stays in office"); and Rep. Charles Bennett ("It is ridiculous to

put all of those strategic programs in a financed position just

so we can use them at the arms control table.").60

Third, the defense budget, which represented a major portion

of the relatively few discretionary dollars Congress could still

allocate each year,61 became a major component (some would say

the major component) in negotiations between the Bush

administration and the Democratic Congress over larger fiscal

priorities, principally debt reduction. Simply stated, the FY91

defense budget was caught between vastly differing views of how

large the post-cold war peace dividend should be, when it should

start to be paid out, and what it was to be used for--increases

in domestic spending (Democrats), or deficit reduction

(Republicans), or tax relief (both parties).62

Speaking for the administration, Cheney frequently and

vigorously defended this cautious approach, contrasting it to the

"slash-and-burn budgeting" being offered by individual Democratic

members of the Congress:

We must never forget that whatever other changes they

may have made, the Soviets retain enormous military

capabilities, including a massive inventory of modern

nuclear weapons . . . It is hard for me to look a that

capability, to consider the possibilities of upheaval

in the Soviet Union, and to remain peacefully sanguine

as if we no longer need to be concerned about our own

defense.63

Despite the firestorm of protest, through March 1990

Congressional Democrats were not united in an alternative

approach to that of the administration. In the Senate, Nunn had

not yet made his position known. In the House, there was broad

division among the Democrats at a party caucus in mid-March. 

Liberals, such as Barny Frank, wanted rapid and massive shifts in

FY91 funds from defense to discretionary domestic programs; more

conservative members, such as Murtha, McCurdy and Spratt, argued

for cuts only $10 to $12 billion below the administration's

request.
While such differing, individual views among the opposition

did not pressure the administration, the actions of the

Democratic leadership certainly did. Aspin, in particular, put

pressure on the administration by two separate actions. First,

his staff determined the cost of a number of alternative

reductions in defense manpower and weapons systems, demonstrating

only small savings in FY91, but major savings by FY95.64 This

helped to create a consensus in the caucus that a multi-year

basis for the build-down was preferable, if it was begun in FY91.

 Conservatives could see a pace of build-down that did not

threaten the all-volunteer force and postponed major reductions

for another year while the situation in Europe clarified; and

liberals could see specific and large dividends coming,

particularly in the major weapons systems they opposed, albeit a

few years into the future.

Aspin further laid the groundwork for defense cuts by

holding a series of hearings in March to examine, and undercut,

the administration's contention that events in the Soviet Union

remained "reversible," and therefore sufficiently dangerous as to

warrant the size and scope of the FY91 submission.65 One of the

witnesses called was the J-8 on Powell's staff, Major General

John Robinson, who was at the same time helping Powell flesh out

his "View of the 1990s."

While defending the administration's cautious approach,

Robinson shared with the Committee the planning factors being

discussed in the Pentagon for warning of a Soviet attack in

Europe--factors at that time still similar to those used as

during the cold war.66 Based on the testimony of Robinson and

others, Aspin immediately and publicly announced that since the

FY91 submission did not take into account the drastically changed

realities in Europe, "the defense budget is seriously out of

date."

Later, this argument that the administrations's defense

submission was consistently "out of date" or "one revolution

behind" was recreated very effectively by Aspin during

congressional consideration of the FY92 budget, as well as the

FY93 budget.67 While not exactly correct, this message was a

constant thorn in the side of the administration, since it

portrayed a Congress more aware of changing security conditions

than the administration responsible for shaping them in America's

interests. Such tactics induced equally effective responses from

Cheney in the form of recession lists, selected program

terminations, and suggested base closures to keep the Congress

divided and defensive.

By April 1990, Senator Sam Nunn, Chairman of the Senate

Armed Services Committee and perhaps the most influential defense

specialist in Congress, also added considerable pressure to the

administration to accelerate the pace of defense cuts. Nunn did

this in a very deliberate style, using a series of four floor
speeches (March 22 to April 20) to link the changing world

environment to a new military strategy for the post-cold war era,

and then to recommend the force structure and defense policies

necessary to execute the strategy.68 Occurring at exactly the

same time that Powell and Wolfowitz had begun the process of

developing such a strategy, the effect was a clear warning to the

administration:69 "Congress would begin reshaping the Pentagon's

request to its own design (Nunn's) unless the administration

submitted a plan for an accelerated retrenchment and linked it to

a cheaper budget."70

In fact, Nunn's speeches were more influential within the

administration than reported in the press, largely because of the

manner in which he related the recommended military strategy to a

recommended resource level for defense. It was thorough,

plausible to the public, and fully supportive of (in fact,

explicitly built on) President Bush's National Security Strategy

which had just been released publicly for the first time the

month before. The clear message received by senior members of

the administration was that they could lose control of the postcold war defense build-down to the Congress unless they could

produce an equally persuasive combination of military strategy

and associated force structure.71

If the administration were to lose "control of the builddown"--which was loosely interpreted as retaining the initiative

to propose the size and pace of the reductions, as well as the

detailed policies needed for implementation--then it would be

forced to accept several policies proposed by Nunn that the

administration considered inimical to the nation's future

interests. Most of these affected conventional programs and

forces; Nunn offered few significant departures in strategic

nuclear doctrines or forces. The recommendations of concern

included a reduction of troop strength in Europe to 75,000 by

1995, greatly increased reliance after 1995 on reserve forces

versus active duty forces, flexible readiness across the defense

force structure, as well as a reduction in FY 91 defense

obligational authority of $16 to $18 billion.72 This Nunnrecommended figure was adopted a few weeks later in the Senate

budget resolution, again marking his influence within the Senate

on defense matters.

This ended the first phase of the Congress's influence on

the administration's build-down plan, a phase in which each side

not only stated its initial position, but attempted also to

create leverage for the second, more serious phase of

negotiations on the larger Federal budget. It was to be a phase

in which defense would be little debated on it own merits, most

often a pawn in a larger partisan battle over priorities for

deficit reductions.

The second phase began later in the spring of 1990, as

increasing economic sluggishness indicated that the Federal

deficit, including the cost of bailing-out failed savings and
loan institutions, would be $131 billion higher than estimated

when the FY91 budget was prepared the preceding fall. Unless new

revenue could be raised--and neither party wanted to be blamed

for this, particularly the Republicans after Bush's "read my

lips, no new taxes" campaign pledge--the Gramm Rudman law would

go into effect, triggering automatic cuts of 25 percent from

defense and 38 percent from domestic programs.73 Since this was

intolerable to both parties, negotiations on the larger issue of

deficit reductions began between the respective leaderships in

May.74

Among other packages designed to forestall the potential

sequestration by finding $50 billion in deficit reduction in FY91

and $500 billion over 5 years, the negotiators agreed on June 6

to discuss several alternative approaches to reducing future

defense expenditures.75 Behind the scene, House and Senate

staffers already were building options around their respective

budget resolutions, and the President had earlier asked Secretary

Cheney to prepare such an "illustrative option" to be used in the

negotiations.76 Cheney would later note it was a request he

encouraged from the White House since by then he was prepared

with the work done by Powell and Wolfowitz.77 Cheney presented

his "illustrative" option on June 19, a plan to reduce the size

of U.S. combat forces by 25 percent, thereby "imparting

considerable political momentum to the idea of cutting active

duty Army divisions from 18 to 12, Navy ships from 566 to 455,

and Air Force fighter wings from 36 to 25."78 As noted by

Senator Nunn, "Most of the budget exercise from here on is going

to start with this force structure."79 The similarity to the

final administration "base force" should not be missed--in

essence, the administration's decision on force reductions was

presented to Congress via these negotiations, and accepted.

There was far less agreement, however, on what the fiscal

implications of such a reduction might be. Cheney's presentation

indicated that a 25 percent reduction in combat forces would not

translate into a corresponding percentage cut in defense

expenditures. Rather, he presented only a 10 percent cut in

defense expenditures, adjusted for inflation, a cut surprisingly

similar to the FY91 defense request already before Congress, and

within a few billion dollars a year of the entire Bush

administration 5-year defense program.80 Unlike the House and

Senate, Cheney assumed cuts in forces only, not in their

modernization; as earlier noted, this was a major point of

contention between the two institutions.

Keeping the pressure on the administration, Aspin released

within the next few days a study by the Congressional Budget Off

ice81 showing that Cheney's 25 percent reduction in combat forces

should have translated into a defense saving of 17 to 27 percent,

depending on how many functions were to be transferred to the

reserves, whether new weapons systems were to be slowed, and so

on.82 Once again an administration attempt to set and maintain a

course for the build-down had been quickly and effectively
countered by congressional leaders, leaving unclear just which

institution was in charge of future U.S. defense policy.

A stalemate prevailed at this point with an unannounced

consensus between the branches for a 25 percent reduction in

combat forces, but no agreement on how fast that should be

accomplished, and how that reduction should translate into a

peace dividend for FY91 and beyond. This stalemate was only

broken in the final stages of the negotiations when, as part of a

larger deal on reducing the Federal budget deficit, defense

expenditures became "a secondary consideration for both sides,"

with the Democrats' top priority being to minimize cuts in

domestic programs, and the Bush team concentrating,

unsuccessfully, on not raising taxes.83

The final agreement reached in October was expected to

reduce the deficit by $40 billion in FY91 and by $500 billion in

FY91-95.84 Among the many major changes, separate annual

ceilings were placed on the three categories of discretionary

Federal spending (international, defense, and domestic) for the

period FY 91-93, and an aggregate ceiling for all three

categories of discretionary spending for FY94-95, as shown in

Table 2.

 FY91 FY92 FY93 FY94 FY95

Defense

 BA* 288.9 291.6 291.8 -- --

 OL" 297.7 295.7 292.7 -- --

International

 BA 20.1 20.5 21.4 -- --

 OL 18.6 19.1 19.6 -- --

Domestic

 BA 182.7 191.3 198.3 -- --

 OL 198.1 210.1 221.7 -- --

All Categories

 BA -- -- -- 510.8 517.7

 OL -- -- -- 534.8 540.8

*BA - Budget Authority

**OL - Outlays

Table 2. Discretionary Spending Limits,85 FY91-95

Compared to the President's initial request of $306 billion

in defense outlays for FY91, the agreement set FY91 outlays

at roughly $298 billion, $296 billion for FY92, and $293 billion

for FY93.86 The major concessions by the Republicans were to

agree to new revenues and to take most discretionary reductions

in FY 91 in the defense category, while the Democrats had to

agree to give up a portion of their "power of the purse" for 3
years (no transfers among discretionary categories for the next 3

years, i.e., no reductions in defense to fund domestic programs)

and to accept reductions in domestic programs such as Medicare

and farm price- and income-support programs.

The legislation implementing the results of these historic

negotiations, known as the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, also

restructured fundamentally the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit

reduction legislation of 1985, as well as the Congressional

Budget Act of 1974 which apportions budgetary power between the

two branches of government and defines congressional budget

procedures. The Budget Enforcement Act doubtless will be the

worthy object of many dissertations in the future, likely

focusing on its effectiveness (or lack thereof) in controlling

Federal deficits, or the manner in which it violated the Bush

campaign pledge of "no new taxes," ultimately contributing to his

political demise.

But for the purposes of this case study, a different point

about this Act is of signal importance--it created for the first

time in the Republic's history a period of three consecutive

fiscal years within which a President and his civilian and

military leadership could plan for the future confident of the

level of defense appropriations they would receive. This stable

environment for FY91, FY92 and FY93, at high but declining

levels, provided the Bush administration time to plan and execute

an orderly build-down of the nation's cold war military 

capabilities, with only a few further difficulties from

Congress.87

The only major change to the administration build-down plan

(as subsequently presented with the FY92 defense submission) was

the refusal of Congress in the summer of 1992 to reduce the

reserve component force structure. To be sure, several other

factors in the next 2 years helped to sustain this agreement,

notably Cheney's tactics of keeping Congress divided and

defensive about members' pet projects, and the significant

unemployment induced by the prolonged period of slow growth after

the brief recession of 1991. But the budget agreement with the

Congress was without doubt one of the most influential factors in

administration decision making.

Influences of the Gulf War.

The Gulf War started with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on

August 2, 1990, the same day President Bush was in Aspen

announcing his plans for the 25 percent reduction in conventional

forces. As we have seen, decision making on the basics of the

new military strategy and the base force to be created by the 25

percent reductions was completed by then. In fact, it was

completed before Cheney's presentation of the package to the

budget negotiators on June 1 9. What influence, then, could the

Gulf War have had on executive decision making?
In my judgement it had at least three influences, all of

which served to confirm the decisions already taken internally by

the administration, but not yet presented to the Congress, and to

facilitate their subsequent acceptance by the Congress. Without

these influences, it is doubtful that when the final decisions

were presented to Congress in January to April 1991 (the FY92.

defense submission), administration officials would have

presented what they did.

The first influence was through fiscal channels. One very

important result of the June-October budget negotiations, was the

decision:

not to allow the buildup [and subsequent use] of United

States forces in the Persian Gulf to reshape the

defense budget dramatically. Instead, budget

negotiators agreed to exclude the costs of Operation

Desert Shield from the budget limits and to provide

funds through supplemental appropriations when

needed.88

Thus, by placing the funding for the conduct of the war

outside the negotiated ceilings for defense for FY91-93, the

administration could be assured that its plans for the build-down

would not be affected by the unknown costs of the war. There

would be no diversion of DOD funds from within the negotiated

ceilings for the war effort, an eventuality that might have

forced dramatic increases in the pace of the build-down in areas

other than those capabilities being readied for the war.89

Second, the Gulf War validated the conceptual underpinnings

of the new military strategy. After the Gulf War, it can fairly

be said that there were no more real debates on the appropriate

post-cold war military strategy, either inside the administration

or between the administration and the Congress. There were many

debates on what type and how many forces were necessary to

execute the strategy, and where they should be stationed in

peacetime, but none of substance on the national strategy itself

(as distinguished from the CINCs' in-theater, operational

strategy).

This is not to say that each element of the new strategy, in

being validated in the minds of policymakers, succeeded in what

it was designed to do. The first element, strategic deterrence

and defense, was not really tested in the war, but surveillance

capabilities designed for that element of the strategy were used

and worked marginally well in identifying Iraqi SCUD launches in

a timely manner.90 The success of the second element, forward

presence, and its ability to deter regional instabilities and

war, will be debated for years to come. Obviously, Seldom was

not deterred. But what would be required to deter in this or

other regional crisis situations for which the strategy is

designed?91 Since the answer is not knowable, the debate will
continue. Nonetheless, the need for forward presence as an

element of U.S. national strategy is not now in question, the

Gulf War having shown its validity in regions of vital U.S.

interests.

The third element of the strategy, crisis response, was also

validated. Coalition forces, led by U.S. high-technology

capabilities, decisively defeated the Iraqi forces in successive

air and ground campaigns, while a maritime blockade effectively

isolated the battlefield. That said, there were later

controversies aplenty about which forces contributed most to the

warfighting, arguments which need not be pursued for this case

study. The point is that the "base force" performed quite well,

helping to undercut anticipated congressional opposition to

continued funding of high-tech capabilities in the post-cold war

era. Not only was the strategy validated, but also the type of

capabilities that executed it.

Further, the number of active forces deployed to the Gulf--

427,000--and the amount of U.S. capability that would have

represented in the administration's proposed FY95 base force--66

percent of the Army divisions, 50 percent of the Navy carrier

battle groups and air wings, 66 percent of the Air Force

fighter/attack wings, and 66 percent of the Marine divisions and

air wings92--indicated to many that the administration's decision

to retain capabilities in the base force for two simultaneous

regional crises had been prudent. U.S. military participation in

operations off Liberia and Bangladesh during the closing days of

the Gulf War strengthened this perception.

The administration reinforced the connection between forces

and strategy when it presented its decisions for initial

consideration shortly after the end of the Gulf War campaign:

In all, we feel the FY92-97 defense program takes our

conventional force structure down to a level in the

mid-1990s that will be the irreducible minimum needed

to support the strategic concepts outlined here and to

protect our vital interests . . . I believe that our

success in the Persian Gulf was a clear vindication of

the central tenets of our new strategy, in particular

the need to plan for robust regional threats.93

Thus, both the crisis response element of the strategy and the

base force to execute it were validated in the Gulf War in a

manner that tended to reinforce strongly in most policymakers'

minds how the two, of necessity, went together.

But not all policymakers agreed with the administration's

decision making, notably Les Aspin of the House Armed Services

Committee. For the next 2 years he and his committee staff

worked diligently to justify, based on a capabilities-based

analysis, a smaller U.S. force structure for the crisis response

element of the strategy.94 In the end, hampered more by the
economic down-turn than by his staff's analysis, he was

unsuccessful in persuading his colleagues in the House not to

support almost all of the administration's recommendations.

The third way in which the Gulf War influenced

administration decisions on the build-down was by the validation

of the broad reorganization of the Department of Defense under

the earlier Goldwater-Nichols legislation, particularly the

issues of unity of command and jointness of combat effort. An

earlier section of this case study discussed the influence of the

legislation on the role of the Chairman. Here the influence was

felt more through the new role and authorities of the unified

commander, the CINC, in this case General Schwarzkopf.

In earlier conflicts, with the possible exception of the

U.S. operations in Panama in 1988-89, each military service ran

its own operations, with a weak central command phasing the

operations and dividing them in physical space. Schwarzkopf used

the CINCs' new authorities fully--some would say he even added to

them. Coalition operations were planned and executed by his

command in-theater, not by the Chiefs or individual military

departments in Washington. Matters of command, employment of

forces, hiring and firing of subordinate commanders, and an ironfisted control over all logistics and support were the "norm"

under Schwarzkopf.95 And, most important, it succeeded.

The influence this created for administration decision

makers was to dilute efforts within the Pentagon after the war to

affect further the basic elements of the build-down decisions. 

To be sure, the services each tried to put the best spin possible

in their record in the war, but in fact there were no subsequent

changes in the numbers of active divisions, wings, or carrier

battle groups requested of Congress for the base force. Nor were

there changes in active manpower levels. Subsequently, neither

were there any significant changes made by Congress, indicting no

successful end-runs by military departments. Jointness and unity

were as much respected on the Hill as they were by the senior

decision makers who made the decisions within the administration.

Summary.

What then were the major influences that created the Bush

administration's post-cold war build-down plan, the new military

strategy and the "base force" to execute it? What has been

highlighted by this process of tracking the various events in

administration decision making?

To answer that question, it should first be noted how well

the decisions fared over time and to note whether the influences

which created the decisions had any lasting power. With the

arrival of the Clinton administration, it is clear that the

build-down of U.S. military capabilities after the cold war will

be divided into two phases, likely named for the respective

Presidents responsible for each. The intent here is to note the
degree to which the intent of the Bush administration decisions

on the build-down were followed through, at least to the end of

his tenure (the execution of the FY93 budget, roughly until

October 1993), or whether they were thwarted, changed, or

modified in some substantial way.

In my judgement, the plan has fared remarkably well since

its inception in the early spring of 1990. The new military

strategy has not been seriously questioned in any of its

conceptual underpinnings for the use of conventional forces, and

has served quite accurately as the organizing concepts around

which forces were arrayed and employed successfully in several

regional crises, most notably in Operation DESERT SHIELD/DESERT

STORM. The basic strategic concepts of "presence" and "crisis

response" are unquestioned today, even though the means to be

employed in any situation is always debatable.

This is not to say, however, that every concept within the

strategy has received the same level of support, either from

academic strategists, or for that matter from the administration

and Congress. The concept of "strategic deterrence and defense"

is a case in point. As the potential for nuclear confrontation

has further decreased since early 1990, in large part due to the

administration's aggressive pursuit of further strategic arms

control measures,96 support within both the administration and

Congress for the means to implement the concept have changed

significantly.97 A second example is the concept of

"reconstitution." It was originally conceived in early 1990 as a

means to provide for the re-creation of wholly new combat

capability if needed in the instance of global conflict. As that

prospect faded in the external security environment, the concept

is now considered much less necessary for that purpose, and much

more for the purpose of maintaining an efficient and credible

industrial base for the provision of high technology military

hardware well into the next century.

It can be said in a similar manner that the "base force" as

originally designed by the administration has fared equally well,

with one notable exception. Both the size of the active

component forces and their relative disposition around the globe

have turned out to be remarkably similar to tht originally

envisioned by Powell and the other planners within the Pentagon,

both civilian and military. While the original intent has held,

residual U.S. forces in Europe will likely be reduced further

early in the Clinton phase of the build-down.98 Even then,

however, from the strategic perspective, the adjustment will be

in means, rather than ends.

The only major exception to the Bush plan for the "base

force" has been the refusal by Congress to reduce U.S. reserve

forces by anything close to the plan offered by the

administration.99 In this case it is clear that the external

influence (end of the threat of global war) which created this

part of the plan was not nearly so strong on congressional
opinions as the contrary influence to preserve jobs in members'

states and districts during a period of an economic slowdown and

a national election.

Turning now to the major influences, it appears, without

reference to intensity or priority, that the following were

dominant in the minds and actions of administration decision

makeers as the events unfolded.

The Changing External Security Environment. Obviously

fundamental changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe drove

the decision-making processes within the Bush administration. It

is, afer all, supposed to happen that way! Events described

earlier detail the extent to which the analysis of the NSR-12

review in the White House, and the individual study groups under

Powell and Wolfowitz, were focused precisely on responding to and

further influencing these events.

A Like-Minded View of Changing Circumstances by Senior

Members of the Bush Administration. Even though external events

were strongly influential, important also is the fact that they

were interpreted in remarkably similar manner by the very small

and somewht closed group of individuals that made the major

decisions in the administration's build-down plan.100 There does

not appear to have been any signfiicant disagreements among

administration officials on interpreting external events as they

apply to decision making for the build-down (this does not

include crisis decision making by the same group during the same

period). This does not imply that all of the like-minded

perceptions were correct by some criteria (the common, but

cautious view of the reversibility of changes in Russia and

Eastern Europe may be one that was not), but simply that they

were quite similar, even when arrived at independently. More

important, the commonality of view also extended to what the

administration needed to do in response to these changes, perhaps

best documented publicly in general terms in the President's

strategy report to Congress of March 1990. Such common view

facilitates dealing with Congress as well as with the various

power baronies of the Pentagon, notably the military departments.

It is not clear why so much commonality of perception

prevailed. The type of closely-held decision process used

clearly helped, but beyond that we must speculate.101 Likely

causes would be common sources of intelligence (even though all

of these people had independent access to other sources,

especially foreign ones), and, except for Scowcroft, common

experiences in senior positions in previous administrations

dealing with the same foreign actors and issues.102

Congressional Views of External Changes. Until Senator

Nunn's March-April speeches, the administration did not really

have to be too concerned about the proposals of individual

members of Congress, who naturally took quite different views

from one another as to the size and pace of the anticipated
build-down and where the peace dividend was to be applied. Nor

could the administration respond in any detail, since it had not

yet finished its own planning. But with Nunn's presentations, it

was apparent that even defense supporters in Congress were

willing to consider steeper reductions than the administration

thought prudent. In the interbranch context, which institution

was going to be in the lead in the build-down also became an

issue. Cheney, in particular, was keenly aware of the political

dangers involved for the administration, as well as for his

department, and sensitive to the need to "have a good story to

tell to the members of Congress."103 Even a casual reading of the

administration's testimonies for FY92 (January-April 1991),

particularly those of Cheney, Powell and Wolfowitz, shows the

unusual degree to which they reacted to these concerns, all the

more unusual because these testimonies were prepared and

delivered simultaneous to the conduct of the Gulf War. But the

fact remains, administration decision makers were keenly aware

of, and influenced by, the potential of independent, and

undesirable, congressional action.

Domestic Economic Influences. There can be no doubt that

executive decision makers, as well as leaders in both

institutions party to this issue of building down America's

defenses, were very strongly--perhaps most strongly--influenced

by domestic economic problems. The influences varied over time.

 As the Bush administration came in office in early 1989, they

brought a consensus that "this government is financially broke,"

and priority must be placed on reducing the twin deficits of

budget and trade. Later in 1990 it was the ballooning Federal

deficit and the likelihood of sequestration that was unacceptable

for both branches. Still later in 1991, after the negotiated

Budget Act, the job losses and slow recovery in the domestic

economy made the Congress reluctant to fight for further defense

reductions in FY92, or even to authorize some of the

administration's planned reductions for FY92 and FY93.

Even after the Budget Act of 1990 defused this issue for a

time, the influence from Congress continued as was noted earlier

in the section on the Gulf War. The subsequent Aspin-Powell

debate (summer 1992) over capability- versus threat-based force

structures was in one sense a continuation of the "who is in

charge of the build-down" issue. More fundamentally, however, it

was a replay of the differing partisan views on deficit reduction

and early posturing for the national campaign--identifying

differences in the party's approaches to defense, with the

Democrats displaying a less expensive option. As such, it

maintained continuing pressure on the administration, however

successfully countered, to review the original decisions.

A Strong Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The post-World War

II history of attempts by both administrations and congresses to

impose some form of unity and centralized direction on the

America's military departments shows few successes until 1986.104

This is all the more true in periods of declining resources for
defense. However, for the executive decisions that are the

object of this case study, that history changed dramatically. 

Powell's influence, both personally and institutionally, in the

shaping of these decisions by a unified military response was

remarkably strong.

Obviously the various aspects of the influence of a "strong

Chairman" on executive decision making cannot be separated one

from another. But further identification of how this influence

was manifested is possible, and helpful for these conclusions.

First was Powell's unique strategic vision. As we have

seen, Powell had extensive experiences with the changing world

scene well before becoming Chairman. Never before has the nation

had a Chairman who had served as National Security Advisor to the

President, much less during a period such as 1987-89. He had a

strategic vision that assigned a role to the nation in the future

world, and which included many of the means to fulfill that role-

-continuing alliances, deepening economic interdependence with

other democracies, negotiating a smaller nuclear umbrella,

keeping superior maritime capabilities and ready fighting forces

to project power when needed, and producing a "much smaller

force" that will cost "much less money."105

In particular, this vision allowed him, more quickly that

most of his uniformed contemporaries, to move beyond the Soviet

threat as the basis for force planning, and to arrive at a new

strategy, new force level, and pace of build-down that were

appropriate to the changing world and had a chance of being

supported in Congress. While their limited vision caused many in

uniform to remain in the risk minimization mode, Powell realized

the nation had quickly discounted future risks coming from the

cold war, and he moved on with a vision to minimize costs

consistent with the reduced capabilities of a residual

superpower.106

Historians will debate the accuracy of his vision, but the

importance for this case study on decision making is that it

existed, with clarity, and that he effectively used it and its

further development within the Pentagon to create "that picture

of future changes desired by government elites."107

Second, Powell's influence was manifested through the

strengthened institutional role of the Chairman. Historians

correctly remind us of the "symbiotic relationship between

strategic vision and decisive authority,"108 each insufficient

without the other, even more so in the policy processes within

the executive branch. But in this case Powell also had the

"decisive authority" in terms of the strengthened institutional

role mandated in the Goldwater-Nichols legislation. 

Relationships between the Chairman and the other Joint Chiefs

were simply different than they had ever been before, with the

service Chiefs now unable to use an institutional role to force

incorporation of their views. Given the differences in recent
professional experiences, as well as Powell's standing in the

Bush administration, there was a understandable inclination

toward nonconfrontation. And, Powell needed to balance the

Chiefs' views with those of the Unified Commanders-in-Chief, who

also received via the Goldwater-Nichols legislation greatly

strengthened positions. The service Chiefs' views were now

considered in this broader context on the merit of their content,

with the Chairman's advice to political leaders remaining

singular, except as their views were incorporated into his.109

Third, and last, Powell's influence was manifested in a

unified strategy with which he avoided the problem he had

observed so closely while serving as Weinberger's military

assistant during the Reagan era buildup of U.S. defense

capabilities--the autonomy of the services manifested in separate

military strategies for which each justified and built forces

largely unintegrated with each other. This was also the means by

which they effectively communicated their needs to parochial

supporters on the Hill.110

By the time the first crisis of the post-cold war era

arrived, actually only a few months into the era, Powell and the

Joint Staff had developed the new, unified military strategy,

which was executed forcefully by the unified commanders involved,

particularly Schwarzkopf in Central Command. As we have seen,

these events in the Gulf War validated, both within the military

profession and to the general public, the conceptual

underpinnings of the new military strategy and the enhanced role

of joint, unified commanders waging theater campaigns.

Shortly thereafter, the White House published an outline of

the new defense strategy in the Bush administration's second

report to Congress on national security strategy (August 1991). 

Powell and his staff subsequently published an unclassified

version of the complete military strategy in time for

administration testimony for FY93 (January 1992). This

intentional declassification of the strategy for more effective

public communications was the last step in the series of events

that effectively ended the era of individual service strategies.

 Of course, the early relief by the Secretary of Defense of one

of the service Chiefs for publicly advocating his service's role

in the Gulf War at the expense of the joint effort only

reinforced the joint approach Powell and the unified commanders

had taken. It is not by coincidence that the post-Gulf War

strategies" of each service now reflect most strongly their

contribution to joint warfare, rather than the unintegrated

approach of the 1980s, the last era of service autonomy in such

matters."111

Having discussed the major influences on executive decision

making, it would also be helpful to discuss those influences that

research did not show to be as strong as hypothesized. The first

is the role played by the traditional decision-making process of

the Pentagon, the PPBS. It was not influential because these
decisions were of a planning nature, whereas the PPBS is designed

for the primary purpose of programming and budgeting, not

planning. Sound cost-effectiveness analysis cannot be done until

the missions for which military force is to be used have been

identified and their scope delineated. And that was being done

for the first time in the post-cold war era by the study groups

under Powell and Wolfowitz.

Concluding this does not mean the PPBS was not used during

this period. To be sure, meetings were scheduled and the right

people attended, guidance was issued and revised as the budget

negotiations came to fruition, and the services and defense

agencies did produce the programs and budgets necessary to

implement the plans. But the point is the decisions were the

plans, which preceded the use of the PPBS for their

implementation. As one attendee put it, "The DPRB meetings were

rather anti-climatic, a time for expected speeches for or against

decisions already made. Really, we could have done without most

of them."112

The second decision-making system that was not influential

was that of the National Security Council. The system

implemented early in the Bush administration called for a

hierarchy of interagency committees to work crises and policy

issues requiring Presidential involvement, culminating with the

Deputies Committee, chaired by Scowcroft's deputy, Robert Gates,

and the National Security Council itself, chaired by the

President.113 There appears to have been no meetings of these

groups to consider the strategy and force structure decisions

associated with the build-down of U.S. forces during this period.

Two factors contributed to this. The first was the pace of

events already transpiring within the NSC system. It was simply

jammed with issues from several sets of arms control negotiations

(START, CFE, CSCE, and the Chemical Weapons Convention to note

but four) and other issues flowing from the end of the cold war

(reunification of Germany, reorientation of NATO), as well as the

military crises in Panama and later in the Gulf. The other

reason is seen in the nature of the decisions being made--

centered within one cabinet department and viewed by some of the

senior decision makers as part of a larger domestic economic

problem, which are not the type decision normally taken to the

NSC.114

Again as with the PPBS, not too much should be made of this

conclusion. The right people made the decisions, and all the

research shows they made them for what they perceived to be the

correct reasons.

ENDNOTES

1. Alexander L. George and Timothy J. McKeown, "Case

Studies and Theories of Organizational Decision Making" in

Advances in Information Processing in Organizations, JAI Press,
Inc., 1985, pp. 21-58.

2. President George Bush, Address to the Aspen Institute,

Aspen, Colorado, August 2, 1992, White House Press Office,

mimeograph, p. 2.

3. George and McKeown, "Case Studies and Theories of

Organizational Decision Making," p. 35.

4. Richard Cheney, Annual Report to the President and the

Congress, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office,

January 1991, p. x.

5. Admiral William Crowe, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

(JCS), 1989 Joint Military Net Assessment, Washington, DC: Office

of the Secretary of Defense, May 1989, pp. ES-1 through ES-12.

6. Paul Y. Hammond, "Origins of NSC-68" in Strategy,

Politics and Defense Budgets by Warner Schilling, Paul Hammond,

and Glenn Snyder, New York: Columbia University Press, 1962, pp.

300-326.

7. William Crowe, Chairman, p. ES-2.

8. General Colin Powell, Chairman, JCS, National Military

Strategy of the United States, Washington, DC: U.S. Government

Printing Office, 1992,

p. 6.

9. Richard Cheney, testimony before the Senate Armed

Services Committee, February 21, 1991, Reuter transcript, p. 9.

10. Lewis Libby, "Remarks on Shaping U.S. Defense Strategy:

Persistent Challenges and Enduring Strengths," in America's Role

in a Changing World, London: International Institute for

Strategic Studies, Adelphi Paper 257, Winter 1990/91, pp. 64-76.

11. General George Butler, "Adjusting to Post-Cold War

Strategic Realities," Parameters, Spring 1991, pp. 2-9.

12. Colonel Mike Hayden, USAF, Director, Defense Policy,

NSC, and Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force,

interview by author, December 11, 1992, Washington, DC.

13. The bulk of the administration testimony occurred

during the presentation of the FY92-97 defense plan, January

through April of 1991. Testifying in addition to Cheney and

Powell were Paul Wolfowitz, the Under Secretary for Policy;

Donald Atwood, the Deputy Secretary; R. Lewis Libby, Principal

Assistant Secretary to Wolfowitz for Resources and Strategy;

Shawn O'Keefe, DOD Comptroller; and Admiral David Jeremiah, Vice

Chairman, JCS, as well as the Service Secretaries and the ranking

military Chief of each service.
14. Colin Powell, National Military Strategy, p. 7.

15. For a review of this aspect of internal DOD decision

making on the base force, see Leslie Lewis, C. Robert Roll, and

John Meyer, "Assessing the Structure and Mix of Future Active and

Reserve Forces: Assessment of Policies and Practices for

Implementing the Total Force Policy," Washington, DC: Rand

Corporation, National Defense Research Institute, 1992.

16. Colin Powell, National Military Strategy, pp. 8-1 0.

17. Colin Powell, testimony before the Senate Armed

Services Committee, February 21, 1991, Reuters transcript, p. 23.

18. See Appendix A for a diagram of the various force

packages arrayed by mission and geographic focus.

19. Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, testimony

before the Senate Committee on the Armed Services, April 11, 1991

(mimeographed), pp. 1-3.

20. Colin Powell, National Military Strategy, pp. 24-25.

21. Colin Powell's views put him at odds with the service

Chiefs who in the early fall of 1989 saw no need to reduce forces

yet, and to a lessor degree with Secretary Cheney who genuinely

was concerned before the fall of the Berlin Wall not to respond

too precipitously to domestic calls for a peace dividend. 

General Colin Powell, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, interview

by author, February 23, 1993, Washington, DC.

22. Colin Powell, "National Security Challenges in the

1990's: The Future Ain't What It Used To Be," speech given at the

Army War College, May 16,1989, later published in Army, July

1989, pp. 12-14.

23. Colin Powell, interview.

24. Further insight was given by Powell to another military

audience at Annapolis almost 2 years later. As reported in the

Proceedings of theNaval Institute (July 1992), Powell described

his experiences at the NSC,

1987-89, as follows:

In the course of those two years, I participated in

three summit meetings with Presidents Reagan and

Gorbachev. With each new meeting it became clearer to

me that President Gorbachev was deadly serious about

restructuring the Soviet Union. He convinced me that

he had come to the realization that the Soviet Union

was broken. It was not ready for the 21st century, and

only the most fundamental sort of change would make it

ready. I recall two particular meetings with Mr

Gorbachev. In one with Secretary of State Schultz
present in Moscow, Mr Gorbachev said, "I'm not playing

a game. This is for real. I'm going to work as hard

as I can for as long as I can to bring these changes

about, and whenever I step off that stage, what I do at

that point will be irreversible-they will not be able

to go back."

Then in December 1988, a few weeks before the end of

the Reagan administration, Mr. Gorbachev came to New

York and gave a historic speech at the United Nations

to announce-unilaterally, without concessions on our

part that the Soviet Union would reduce its armed

forces by 500,000 troops. Then he came over to

Governor's Island to meet with President Reagan and

President-elect Bush. He looked across the table and

said: "Some of your advisors think this is a game, but

it is not a game, it is for real. It is real

revolution. People cheered when I announced the

revolution in 1986. The cheering was not so loud in

1987. Now it's 1988, and the cheering has ended. The

people don't like the revolution. It is here. It is

going to be difficult and you will see that I am

playing real politics and I am going to change my

country in a way that no one could have imagined."

At that point I became convinced that he was deadly

serious.

25. The Goldwater-Nichols legislation (Public Law 99-433,

October 1, 1986) gave the Chairman a number of new authorities

which altered fundamentally the previous relationships among the

Joint Chiefs of Staff. The most important changes made the

Chairman alone (rather than the corporate Joint Chiefs of Staff)

the "principal military advisor to the President, the National

Security Council and the Secretary of Defense"; provided the

Chairman with a Vice Chairman (which meant that individual

Service Chiefs would no longer serve as acting Chairman in his

absence); gave the Chairman singular "authority, control and

direction over the Joint Staff"; and gave the Chairman

significant new authorities in the defense PPBS, including

setting priorities among the CINCs' requirements and evaluating

for the Secretary of Defense the proposed service programs,

recommending changes where needed to conform to the CINCs' needs.

 For further detail see, Don M. Snider, "DOD Reorganization, Part

1, New Imperatives," Parameters, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, September

1987, pp. 88-100.

26. Some closely-held work planning for an unexpected

future had been initiated in 1988 by Admiral Crowe and the J-5,

Lieutenant General Butler, along with a-small group of "trusted

agents" from the services and the Joint Staff. It had focused

initially on the implications for U.S. strategic forces of the

ongoing START I negotiations, branching out later to consider

also future needs for conventional capabilities after the
anticipated CFE agreement. These players and their work were

quickly folded into the new J/5 and J/8 efforts.

27. Colin Powell, "Dealing With the Changes," Proceedings,

July 1992, p. 12.

28. Colin Powell, interview.

29. This was an often repeated phrase in the CarlucciPowell NSC staff. Powell most often amplified the idea with

examples of Reagan-era policies toward the Contras developed both

within the administration and by the Speaker of the House--

ineffective policies without the necessary inter-branch

consensus.

30. Colin Powell, interview.

31. The theme of "enduring principles, realities, and

defense needs" was used often by Powell to convey his view of the

1990s to the public during this period of decision making,

especially as Congress was asking for more rapid reductions in

defense. See his speech at the National Press Club, Washington,

DC, June 22,1990.

32. This was a common theme from the senior decision makers

interviewed, including the uniformed military. However, it is

not a unanimous view.

33. Colin Powell, interview.

34. Richard Cheney, after-dinner remarks, Conference on

Strategy in Periods of Transition, U.S. Army War College,

Carlisle, PA, February 25, 1993, author's notes.

35. General Larry D. Welsh, USAF, Ret., interview by author,

January 28,1993, Washington, DC.

36. Idem.

37. Larry D. Welch, interview.

38. Idem.

39. The Air Force experience after the Vietnam War was

positive, since they ended with an experienced pilot force second

to none. They did not want to now lose this force. The Army

experience was quite different, coming out of Vietnam essentially

without a non-commissioned officer corps in its combat arms. 

After taking 15 years to rebuild that corps, the Army also placed

priority on a pace of build-down that would preserve those

investments in human capital.

40. General Carl Vuono, USA, Ret., interview by author,

January 21, 1993, Washington, DC.
41. The Army leaders were keenly aware that after

Goldwater-Nichols legislation their chances of retaining the

forces needed overseas to defend future U.S. interests would be

greatly enhanced if the regional CINCs could be brought on board

to support the need.

42. Because of its manpower training and replacement

policies, the Army, much more than the other services, considered

the pace of reductions as the critical variable in planning for

the build-down. Air Force and Navy combatant forces are build

around major items of equipment and tend to rotate to and from

the continental United States with that equipment, e.g., an

aircraft carrier or a tactical fighter squadron. In contrast,

Army combatant forces are manpower intensive, with even small

units having a large range of individual military specialties,

e.g., crew-served weapons operator or antiaircraft missile

repairman. In peacetime, each of these specialties is managed on

a worldwide basis, with individual soldiers rotated among the

"training base" and combat units in the United States, and units

overseas. The balance in this worldwide rotational scheme, which

exists uniquely for each military specialty, is particularly

fragile to nonincremental changes.

43. Admiral Carl Trost, USN, Ret., interview by author,

February 8, 1993, Washington, DC.

44. This quote is intentionally unattributed, and refers

more to decisions on the major components of the base force than

to the tens, and even hundreds, of billions of dollars the

services still allocated after these initial decisions were made.

45. Idem.

46. Richard Cheney was not confirmed as the Secretary of

Defense until March 17, 1989.

47. The term "build-down" gained prominence during the

multilateral negotiations leading to the Intermediate Nuclear

Forces Treaty, December 1987, connoting controlled, step-by-step,

simultaneous reductions by both sides, assuring stability and no

advantage during the reductions.

48. The phrase came from Wolfowitz at the time. A similar

concept has subsequently been elaborated by Charles Krauthammer

in "The Unipolar Moment," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, America and

the World edition, 1991.

49. This last understanding demonstrates the continued

strong influence of a line of strategic thinking within the

defense community, most recently called the "discriminate

deterrence" school, highlighted in 1988 by the lkle-Wholstetter

Commission on Integrated, Long-Term Strategy. For a review of

this school of thought, and Wolfowitz's association with it, see
On Not Confusing Ourselves: Essays on National Security Strategy

in Honor of Albert & Roberta Wohlstetter, Andrew W. Marshall, et

al, eds., Boulder: Westview Press, 1991, especially Chapter 12.

50. Don M. Snider, The National Security Strategy. 

Documenting Strategic Vision, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies

Institute, 1992, pp. 5-6.

51. The Goldwater-Nichols legislation also established a

statuary requirement for the President to report to the Congress

early each year on national security strategy to be pursued with

the resources requested in the administration's annual budget

submission. This was an attempt, primarily by Senator Nunn, to

force a visible, coherent linkage between strategy and resources

in the hopes of elevating the attention of his colleagues to

strategic issues worthy of the Senate. The first Bush report was

drafted in the summer of 1989 from the results of the early

interagency reviews, including NSR-12, but was not published

until March 1990 due to the very rapid changes occurring in

Eastern Europe.

52. Lieutenant General Dale Vesser, USA, Ret., interviews by

author, October 30 and November 12, 1990.

53. Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,

interview by author, February 2, 1993, Washington, DC.

54. For examples of early formulations of what eventually

was folded into Powell's publication, The National Military

Strategy of the United States, see Wolfowitz's testimony on

strategic warning before the Senate Armed Services Committee,

December 12, 1989; his testimony on NATO before the Senate

Committee on Foreign Relations, May 9, 1990; or his testimony on

the new defense strategy before the Senate Committee on Armed

Services, April 11, 1991.

55. Wolfowitz, interview.

56. Mr. Mike Donley, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force

for Financial Management, interview by author, October 27, 1992.

57. Wolfowitz, interview.

58. Michael Hayden, interview.

59. Stephen Daggett, "The FY1991 Budget Debate: How Much

for Defense?" CRS Issue Brief IB90061, Washington, DC:

Congressional Research Service, December 17, 1990, Archives, CRS1.

60. Mark Morrow and Robert Ropelewski, "Peace Dividend

Elusive in FY 91 Defense Budget," Armed Forces Joumal

Intemational, March 1990, pp. 9-15.
61. For an excellent analysis of the trends and causes

leading to the situation where "claims on the budget are so

powerful that they cannot be denied despite the inadequacy of

resources to pay for them and when guardians of the public purse

are so weakthattheycannot ration spending," see Allen Schick, The

Capacity to Budget, Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press,

1990, especially Chapters 4, 5, and 6.

62. Stephen Daggett, "The FY 1991 Budget Debate. . ."

63. Richard Cheney, speech to the United Jewish Appeal, as

reported in Pat Towell, "House Democrats Jockeying: Save Deep

Cuts for Later," Congressional Quarterly, March 17, 1990, pp.

843-844.

64. The examples and numbers used within the caucus were

later published in Towell, p. 843.

65. Dr. Clark Murdock, Special Assistant to Rep Les Aspin,

Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, interview by author,

November 2, 1992, Washington', DC.

66. Major General John Robinson, interview by author,

December 26, 1992, Washington DC.

67. For a representative example of this theme, see

"National Security in the 1990s: Defining a New Basis for U.S.

Military Forces," speech by Representative Aspin before the

Atlantic Council of the United States, House Armed Services

Committee, mimeograph, January 6, 1992.

68. Senator Sam Nunn's speeches were reprinted from the

Congressional Record in a separate volume, Nunn 1990: A New

Military Strategy, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and

International Studies, 1990. His recommended military strategy

was the third speech, April 19, 1990, pp. 41-60 in the referenced

volume.

69. Notwithstanding some of the condescending language, it

was considered a "helpful message." Paul D. Wolfowitz, interview.

70. Pat Towell, "Nunn Weighs in With a Call For New

Planning, Cuts," Congressional Quarterly, April 21, 1990, p.

1206.

71. Mr Robert Howard, Associate Director for National

Security, OMB, interview by author, December 1, 1992, Washington,

DC. Other senior officials interviewed expressed the same view,

e.g., Powell noted, "I knew that defending the new strategy and

base force was going to be very tough-we were like a tight rope

walker trying to dance between the poles without falling off."

72. See Chapter 3 of Nunn 1990 for details of these

proposals.
73. Bob Woodward, "Making Choices: Bush's Economic Record,"

third of three articles, The Washington Post, October 6, 1992, p.

A 14.

74. Any time the negotiators were discussing the defense

appropriation, the administration was represented by the

President's National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, and by

Secretary Cheney. Usually accompanying them were Richard Darman,

Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and his

Associate Director Bob Howard, and Arnold Kanter from the NSC

Staff (Howard interview, December 1, 1992, Washington DC).

75. Pat Towell, "Cheney's Latest Plan Shows Only Part of the

Ax Blade," Congressional Quarterly, June 23, 1990, p. 1975.

76. Richard Darman suggested various budget reduction

packages, as well as "revenue enhancers," to the President for

his cabinet departments to refine for presentation at the

negotiations. In addition to Cheney's proposal, Democratic

negotiators from the Senate pushed Nunn's plan, while House

members presented several options, the most prominent by Bill

Kaufmann of Brookings. (Howard, interview.)

77. Richard Cheney, remarks at U.S. Army War College.

78. Towell, "Cheney's Latest Plan. . ."

79. Idem.

80. Daggett, p. CRS-7.

81. Michael Miller and William Meyers, "Savings from a 25

Percent Reduction in the Defense Department's Forces," CBO Staff

Memorandum, mimeograph copy, Washington, DC: Congressional Budget

Office, June 1990, pp. 1-6.

82. Daggett.

83. Towell, "Cheney's Latest Plan...," p. 1974.

84. An initial agreement was reached on September 30, but

rejected in the House on October 5, throwing the federal

bureaucracy into a "necessary services only" mode until another

agreement could be hammered out on October 27. By then lawmakers

had been forced to stay in session closer to the fall elections

than any time since World War 11. See George Hager, "One Outcome

of Budget Package: Higher Deficits on the Way," Congressional

Quarterly, November 3, 1990, pp. 3710-3713.

85. Stephen Daggett, "The FY 1991 Budget Debate...", pp. 

CRS 10-1 2.

86. The final numbers used for defense (budget authority and
outlays) in the October agreement were those proposed by Senator

Nunn on the floor of the Senate back on April 20, some 5 months

earlier! At a press conference after the final agreement,

Richard Darman credited Nunn as the source and discussed a

complex set of compromises that led to their use, the principal

ones being the exclusion of DESERT SHIELD costs from the defense

ceilings (the Democrats gave) and the acceptance of a 3-year

period of set levels for defense ratherthan 5 years (the

administration gave).

We had wanted five-year numbers fixed in defense. The

price we would have had to pay for five years fixed

would have been too low a defense number. We decided

consciously that we would rather take three years at

the outer limit of what we find acceptable and then

allow for a fair competition for resources in the

fourth and fifth year within the discretionary overall

cap-that's right, within the overall cap-rather than

settle at this stage for what would have had to have

been a defense number that the President could not have

supported as consistent with his judgement of our

national security interests.

Mimeograph copy of Nunn letter to Mitchell and Dole, October 2,

1990, and transcript of Darman press conference, received in

Howard interview, OMB, December 2, 1992.

87. Cheney would later note in response to this author's

question, "The agreement really held for only two years. In FY92

we had to offer further reductions and threaten a Presidential

veto of the entire appropriations bill to get it passed, which

reminds us all once again that a future Congress cannot be bound

by prior agreements." Cheney remarks at U.S. Army War College.

88. Daggett, "The FY 1991 Budget Debate. . .," p. CRS-8.

89. Fortunately, through an immense diplomatic effort by

the administration, ably supported by the Congress, foreign

nations picked up the tab for the majority of the war's costs. 

Of the estimated $61 billion cost of the war, allied

contributions paid for $54 billion, leaving only $7 billion to

come from U.S. sources. See Report on Allied Contributions to

the Common Defense, Department of Defense, May 1992, p. 2-C.

90. Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Guff War,

Final Report to Congress, Washington, DC: U.S. Government

Printing Office, April 1992, pp. 775-776.

91. For two views on this issue see: Janice Gross Stein,

"Deterrence and Compliance in the Gulf, 1990-1991: A Failed or

Impossible Task?", International Security, Vol. 17, No. 2, Fall

1992, pp. 147-179; and Chapters 2-4 of Michael Mazarr, Don

Snider, and James Blackwell Jr., Desert Storm: The Gulf War and

What We Learned, Boulder: Westview Press, 1993.
92. John M. Collins, "US Force Reductions: Capabilities

versus Requirements," Congressional Research Service, Report for

Congress, 92-43-S, January 8, 1992, p. 12.

93. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services,

Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal

Years 1992 and 1993, 102d Cong., 1st sess., testimony by Paul D.

Wolfowitz, April 11, 1991, pp. 560-561.

94. Les Aspin, "An Approach to Sizing American Conventional

Forces for the Post-Soviet Era," January 24, 1992, and "Four

Illustrative Options," February 25, 1992, both distributed by the

House Committee on Armed Services, mimeographed.

95. These findings are repeated in several official studies

of the Gulf War, as well as in the flood of memoirs it produced.

 For example, see the report of the House Armed Services

Committee, Defense for a New Era, Washington DC: U.S. Government

Printing Office, 1992, pp. 41-42; Department, of Defense, Conduct

of the Persian Gulf Conflict. Final Report to Congress, U.S.

Government Printing Office, July 1991, Chapters 5 and 8.

96. For a brief review of these efforts see Annual Report

of the Secretary of Defense to the President and the Congress,

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 1993,

pp. 14-16 and 67-69.

97. As demonstrated by the Missile Defense Act of 1991, a

limited strategic defense program initially enjoyed relatively

widespread support on both sides of the aisle and in both

chambers. (See "Key Votes of 1991," Congressional Quarterly, Vol.

49, No. 52, December 28, 1991, p. 3765, pp. 3774-3775.) Within

one year, however, this support for a limited national strategic

defense system had been significantly eroded. During the FY93

Defense Authorization process, both chambers acted to

significantly reduce SDI spending from $5.4 billion to $4.0

billion and to shift its focus away from the national system

envisioned in the Missile Defense Act to a theater missile

defense system to protect U.S. crisis response forces when

deployed overseas.

98. For one proposal, see Don M. Snider, "U.S. Military

Forces in Europe: How Low Can We Go?", Survival, Winter 1992-

1993, pp. 24-39.

99. Congress, House Committee on Armed Services, "FY93

Defense Authorization Act, House-Senate Conference, Summary of

Major Actions," Washington, DC: House Armed Services Committee,

October 1, 1992, pp. 17-20.

100. That small group would include Cheney, Powell,

Wolfowitz, and perhaps O'Keefe, in the Pentagon; Baker,

Bartholomew, and Ross at State; Scowcroft, Gates and Kanter on
the NSC; and, of course, the President.

101. Wolfowitz attributes this to "process," in that the

very close-hold nature of the two initial studies allowed

administration officials to examine issues and change positions.

102. Cheney supports this idea, noting previous, mutual

experiences in the Ford and Reagan administrations.

A lot was unstated in our work [in the Bush

administration] since Brent, Jim and I had all worked

together over the years. Brent was in Ford's White

House when I was chief of staff there. I hired Jim

Baker to run Ford's reelection campaign. And I was the

minority leader in the House during the Reagan years

when Jim was in the White House and Treasury, and Bush

was the Vice President. Colin was in there for a time

also as the National Security Advisor.

Cheney, remarks at U.S. Army War College.

103. Howard interview, Wolfowitz interview, and Cheney

remarks, U.S. Army War College.

104. The best, recent treatment of attempts to harness

service autonomy, especially as it pertains to conflict in the

21st century is C. Kenneth Allard, Command, Control, and the

Common Defense, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991,

especially Chapters 2, 3 and 4.

105. Powell made several speeches early in his tenure in

which he "gazed into the crystal ball" to share his vision. 

References here are from a speech to civic leaders on March

29,1990, the Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

106. The historical alternation of emphasis in U.S. defense

policy between risk-minimization and cost-minimization is

amplified in David Jablonsky, "Strategic Vision and Presidential

Authority in the Post-Cold War Era," Parameters, Vol. XXI, No. 4,

Winter 1991-1992, p. 2.

107. Ibid.

108. Idem.

109. Of course, the Goldwater-Nichols legislation created

the option for any service Chief to request through the Chairman

to present his views directly to the Secretary of Defense or to

the Commander-in-Chief (the President). During the decisions on

the new military strategy and the base force, the Chiefs met

frequently with the Secretary of Defense as a group, normally

weekly. There appears to be no record of any Chief asking to

meet with the President to present views separate from those of

the Chairman.
110. For an example of policies designed, and partially

implemented, to correct this problem of excessive service

autonomy in strategy formulation, see Chapter 1 of President's

Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, A Quest for

Excellence-Final Report to the President, Washington, DC, White

House printing, June 1986, pp. 9-31.

111. During 1991-92 each of the services published a new,

unclassified service "strategy": "Global Power, Global Reach" by

the Air Force; "From the Sea" by the Navy; and "Strategic

Response" by the Army.

112. Welch, interview.

113. Each administration designs the decision-making system

of the National Security Council to fit the needs of the

President and his style of leadership/management. The Bush

administration published unclassified guidance for their approach

in NSDD#1, January 2O,l989. For a discussion of different

approaches of other administrations, see Karl F. Inderfurth and

Loch K. Johnson, Decisions of the Highest Order. Perspectives on

the National Security Council, Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole

Publishing, 1988.

114. Powell offers an alternative view, "There was no NSC

system then." Powell, interview.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DON M. SNIDER is Deputy Director, Political Military Studies, at

the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He

joined the. Center in March 1990 when he retired from active

duty. Since 1980 he has specialized in assignments related to

military strategy and defense policy, serving consecutively as

Chief of Plans for the Theater Army in Europe; Joint Planner for

the Army Chief of Staff; Deputy Director of Strategy, Plans and

Policy on the Army Staff; and Federal Executive Fellow at the

Brookings Institution. He then joined the staff of the National

Security Council in the White House in 1987 as Director, Defense

Policy, serving in both the Reagan and Bush administrations. 

Within the Center, he specializes in national security strategy,

defense policy and programs, military strategy, and European

security issues. His publications include: a CSIS Panel Report,

A New Military Strategy for the 1990s: Implications for

Capabilities and Acquisition, and The Gulf War. Military Lessons

Learned.


U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General William A. Stofft

Commandant

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Colonel John W. Mountcastle

Director of Research

Dr. Gary L. Guertner

Author

Don M. Snider

Editor

Mrs. Marianne P. Cowling

Secretary

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

Artists

Lawrence C. Miller

Daniel B. Barnett

Composition

Daniel B. Barnett