The Pentagon is eating away at our future security. Just one year ago, Bill Clinton made investment the watchword of his presidential campaign. The human and physical resources we once dedicated to winning the Cold War can now be rededicated to fulfilling unmet domestic needs. Most accounts claim that the administration is making a wrenching transition from a military economy. Headlines report base and plant closures.
Polls show that people, worried about turmoil abroad and jobs at home, are wary of military cuts.
Don't believe the hype. Conservatives decry cuts of 40 percent from Cold War heights, but the reductions follow the feeding frenzy of the early 1980s, when Reagan bloated military spending by 50 percent in real terms. At the end of the century, this bureaucratic bingeing will leave military spending at levels roughly comparable to those the hawkish Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford thought necessary in the midst of the Cold War. Compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. military looks like Bluto bellying up to Sweet Pea. This massive military commitment comes when the U.S. is remarkably free of foreign military threats.