European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 27, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A amps i nil Aloiv a one needs heavy reinforcement do we still fhe capability to Send heavy forces to the lie East Quot he mused. Quot we Haven t decided if we that simultaneous  Navy and air Force offered to Pentagon in their plans for meeting the administrations get guidelines through 1997 services projected a significant cutback in s Active army divisions would fall to 14 from 18, rail carriers to 12 from 14, tactical airings to 28 136. It there would be no changes in Basic strategy. Sul these were Only Early salvos in what is already font envious review often pitting service against 1/ice and military against civilian leadership that Jasi through the year. Weare planning on the basis of a Radical change lie soviet threat Quot the senior Pentagon official a he changes Many critics Are proposing Quot Are not a Ferent from what we re thinking about Quot said the Kal who indicated Pentagon leaders were already a sideling much deeper cuts in the army than sealed so far. At least four fifths of the s300 billion the country a spend this year on the military is devoted to five National forces tank battalions infantry and la troop units Jet fighters aircraft carriers and ack submarines that Are intended to fight War shout a nuclear conflagration. Most of these forces were designed to fight the Pel Union. With the soviet threat receding and the budget sinking All the military services Are competing for a Lead role in future assaults in the third world. Atill a fight with Well armed countries such As Iraq j Syria would require some of the same heavy 1 Desand advanced weaponry needed to fight the i Viets. How Well prepared the country should be for Large-1 Aie conflict depends in the end on a judgment of likelihood it will enter such a War or it might at just want to threaten a fight during a showdown. Brown who said he would like to see an annual widget Quot in the $200 to $250 billion Range a i knowledge the smaller Active duty military he Ivo Cates would be unable to fight a prolonged War. What this military could do in a crisis he said Quot is it us there Early put the . On the  Quot Are we prepared for example Quot he asked Quot to it the iraqis the panamanians the vietnamese or e North koreans with More than an Early show of air id naval Power and a modest ground Force very irly to show we re committed no. We Are prepared put ies Aspin a we need to do some really mental new thinking on gearing forces. To play a peripheral role As we did recently in the persian  there the Navy provided escorts for commercial Oil tankers in the midst of the Iran Iraq War. While a significant mobilization would be required to sustain a major conflict he said such a confrontation now appears to be so unlikely the risk of relying on reserves is Worth running. More sweeping proposals for reductions have come from Kaufmann Robert s. Mcnamara a former defense Secretary and the defense budget task Force a private group of 11 former government officials headed by Lawrence j. Korb an assistant Secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. These critics say the budget should be halved by the year 2000, to about $150 billion in today a dollars. Such a reduction would require in addition to the changes envisioned by other experts the cancellation of Many More new weapons and later in the decade deeper cuts in Active forces such As shrinking the Navy s Fleet of aircraft carriers to six or nine in various plans instead of the 10 or 12 proposed by Many other experts. Under this approach the country would still be prepared for minor interventions but not for prolonged heavy fighting patrolling of the seas by aircraft carriers would be curbed significantly with the Navy becoming More of a reactive Force. This option also presumes a giant Cut in superpower nuclear arsenals and an end to buying new Long Range nuclear weapons. Quot it s very hard to imagine something that would require More than the eight divisions we had in Korea Quot said Kaufmann a defense department consultant in the 1960s and 1970s who now teaches at Harvard University. Quot it s also hard to imagine More than one contingency of that size or two lesser contingencies that would happen simultaneously. Quot and i reject the argument that the Navy performs some pacifying function by floating around the South China sea or  at least for now cutting the budget in half appears to go beyond what is regarded As prudent by a majority of the country s leading military strategists including Many critics of the Pentagon. The huge reductions in army and Navy forces proposed by some Quot amount to saying we Are going to defend ourselves and let others defend themselves Quot Brown asserted. Quot it s hard to see what s wrong with Ali of this going Down until you have a crisis Quot Powell said Quot until you suddenly have to mass forces to Deal with a situation and discover you have to strip from just about everywhere else in the  Lawrence it. Korb Heads defense budget task Force a group of 11 former government officials. Tank loader atop an Abrams during Maneu vers in Germany How Likely is it the soviet military threat in Europe would or could be rebuilt sen. Sam Nunn favors Only one third of the 225, no troops Tor Europe proposed by president Bush