Problems with current U.S. policy.

Despite a slowing economy and Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut, notions of fiscal conservatism have been brushed aside to fund the fight against terrorism. Boeing Vice Chairman Harry Stonecipher got to the heart of the matter when he told The Wall Street Journal that "the purse is now open," so the Pentagon will no longer have to make "hard choices" among competing weapons projects. Unfortunately, no hard choices were being made in the first place.

The highly anticipated Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), an assessment of the nation's defense needs mandated by Congress, was released September 30, 2001. But as Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) quickly noted, the QDR "seems to me to be full of decisions deferred." None of the weapons systems mentioned as a candidate for elimination during the Bush campaign was canceled. Instead, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld set the stage for major increases in military spending, arguing that "the loss of life and damage to our economy from the attack of September 11, 2001, should give us a new perspective on the question of what this country can afford for its defense."

Defense spending for FY 2002 totaled $343.2 billion, a $32.6 billion increase above 2001 levels. Congress is currently debating President Bush's $396 billion FY 2003 military budget request, a $52.8 billion increase. Long-term plans envision the national defense budget increasing to $469 billion in FY 2007, 11% higher than the cold war average.

The most widely used items in Afghanistan to date have been Raytheon's Tomahawks, Boeing's JDAMs, and Northrop Grumman's UAVs. But only about $3.2 billion in the president's budget request will go for more of these systems. Much of the new Pentagon funding will be used to bankroll longstanding pet projects of the military-industrial lobby. In fact, more than one-third of the Pentagon's FY 2003 $68 billion procurement budget will be allocated to big-ticket, cold war-era systems that have little or nothing to do with the war on terrorism.

Although many analysts had assumed that defending against long-range ballistic missiles might take a back seat to other more urgent defense priorities in the wake of September 11, the Bush administration has moved full speed ahead with missile defense. Spending on missile defense increased by 43% in FY 2002, and the Bush administration plans to spend at least $32.7 billion on the missile defense program between now and 2005. Total costs for the deployment and maintenance of a multitiered system could top $200 billion over the next two decades.

Despite campaign promises by President Bush to "skip a generation" in weapons procurement, all three of the Pentagon's advanced fighter plane programs are moving forward. This year alone, close to $12 billion will be allocated to the Air Force's F-22 Raptor, the Joint Strike Fighter/F-35, and the Navy's F-18E/F fighter plane. The F-22 has been described as a costly cold war relic designed for an enemy that no longer exists. The Super Hornet, as the F-18E/F is known, has not been able to meet key performance goals that were used to justify its development. The JSF (also called the F-35) was viewed as a likely program to be cut or scaled back, but within weeks of September 11 Lockheed Martin was awarded a $19 billion development contract, and international partners signed on.

The debate over the Crusader artillery system indicates just how difficult it is to cancel a weapons system. Both President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld criticized the $11 billion Crusader program for being outmoded, because it was designed to fight a land war with the Soviet Union. However, the Army--and members of Congress from Oklahoma, Minnesota, and a dozen other states where parts of the Crusader would be built, put up a tough fight. And for the moment, they seem to have won. Although the Pentagon did officially terminate the program in May, there's still $475 million in the 2003 budget for the Crusader system. As Congress puts the finishing touches on the defense bill, it is expected that the money will go to the Army to develop alternative artillery systems.

The failure of policymakers and defense officials to cancel unnecessary weapons programs is, in large part, due to the undue influence exerted by the top defense contractors. More than any administration in history, the Bush team has relied on the expertise of former weapons contractors to outline U.S. defense needs. Thirty-two major Bush appointees are former executives, consultants, or major shareholders of top weapons contractors. Seventeen administration appointees had ties to major defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, or Raytheon prior to joining the Bush team. These include former Lockheed Chief Operating Officer Peter B. Teets, now undersecretary of the Air Force and director of the National Reconnaissance Office; Secretary of the Air Force James Roche, a former Northrop Grumman vice president; and Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, a former General Dynamics vice president. The theory behind Rumsfeld's reliance on former corporate executives is that they would be more willing to cut costs and try new approaches than the average Pentagon bureaucrat. However, that clearly has not been the case.

The geopolitical reach of the defense megafirms is reinforced by millions of dollars in campaign cash. In 2000 the top six military companies spent over $6.5 million in contributions to candidates and political parties. In addition to these hefty campaign donations, defense contractors spent an astonishing $60 million on lobbying in 2000, the most recent year for which full statistics are available.

Key Problems

* The increases in defense spending due to September 11 have allowed the Pentagon to avoid reform and transformation.

* More than one-third of the Pentagon's $68 billion weapons procurement budget for this year will go to big-ticket, cold war-era weapons systems.

* The failure of policymakers and defense officials to cancel unnecessary weapons programs is, in large part, due to the undue influence exerted by the top defense contractors.

Michelle Ciarrocca <[e-mail]> is an analyst with the Arms Trade Resource Center who writes for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).