The myth of the two-front war: over-preparing for a two-front war that will almost certainly never occur is costing us billions.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has decided that it is in our national interest to maintain a large standing peacetime military. But the appropriate size and shape of a peacetime military force is a subject of acrimonious debate in this country. The debate is so heated because the outcome determines how much this nation will spend on defense as well as the roles and missions of each of the four armed services. This debate promises to occupy much of the time of William Cohen, Clinton's new defense secretary. Before outlining the choices confronting Cohen and the country, it may be useful to discuss briefly how this issue has been handled over the past half-century.

In the 1950s, President Eisenhower, fearful of bankrupting American society and of the power of the military-industrial complex, limited the military to a fixed percentage of GDP and adopted a policy of relying on nuclear weapons to make up for any perceived shortfalls in the size of the conventional forces. The Kennedy administration felt the military should be able to fight simultaneously two major conventional wars, one in Europe and one in Asia, as well as handle a minor contingency in the Third World. This necessitated a large increase in force size or structure and in the level of defense spending even before the war in Vietnam.

In the early 1970s, Richard Nixon eliminated one of the major wars from Pentagon contingency planning and slashed defense forces and spending accordingly. Ironically, Nixon used the defense dividend to double aid to state and local governments, index entitlements, and establish EPA, OSHA, and AMTRAK. (No wonder Mark Shields calls him our last liberal president.) This "one and a half war" policy remained in effect until Ronald Reagan adopted a strategy of horizontal escalation, which postulated that any war with the Soviet Union would automatically be a world-wide conflict, not confined just to the European theater. This enabled Reagan to rationalize increasing defense spending by over 50 percent in real terms in his first four years in office.

The military strategies of each of our Cold War commanders in chief was subject to intense criticism during his time in office. Eisenhower was criticized for relying too much on nuclear weapons and for allowing a "missile gap" to develop; Kennedy for embracing a strategy more ambitious than his budget; Nixon and Carter for spending too little on defense and thus creating a hollow military; and Reagan for spending far more than was needed to get the Soviets to call a halt to the Cold War.

When the Soviet Empire began to collapse in 1989, General Colin Powell, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, fearful that Americans would demand "too large" a peace dividend, developed the Rogue Doctrine. This doctrine postulated that in the post-cold war era, the military threats to the U.S. would come from rogue states like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, and North Korea, and that the U.S. needed to be able to handle at least two of these rogues simultaneously. Powell reasoned that if the U.S. had only a one-war capability, North Korea, for example, might be tempted to take advantage of the U.S. while this nation was fighting a war in the Persian Gulf. Handling these two major regional contingencies (MRCs) simultaneously, Powell argued, would require a force structure and spending level approximately 25 percent below the 1990 level, but more, in inflated adjusted dollars, than was spent in the Nixon and Carter years, and about 90 percent of the average level of defense outlays in the entire cold war period.

In the 1992 campaign, candidate Bill Clinton and then House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-WI) criticized Powell's approach as top-down and promised that a Bottom-Up Review (BUR) would yield a smaller and less costly military. When Clinton took office, he installed Aspin in the Pentagon to do his Bottom-Up Review. But when the BUR was completed, Aspin came out with essentially the same force structure and budget levels as Powell, and more in real dollars than either Nixon or Carter.

This year, under pressure from the Republican Congress, which argues that there is a mismatch between the strategy and the amount of resources made available by the Clinton administration, the Pentagon is revisiting the two-MRC strategy in a process called the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Because it may have such a large impact upon the amount and distribution of defense spending, the QDR is generating considerable controversy. Within the Pentagon, the administration, on the Hill, and in the policy community, to date five different viewpoints have been expressed.

One group of analysts supports the Powell position that the U.S. has no choice but to retain the two-regional-war strategy. To do any less would not only jeopardize our vital national security interests, but would undermine our status as a world leader and global superpower. Secretary of Defense William Perry, in his last days in office, argued that the two MRCs is an existential fact. According to Perry, we do not have a choice about two MRCs because we cannot wish away the reality that we might be faced with two regional conflicts simultaneously. Not surprisingly, Perry's position is most strongly supported by Army Chief of Staff Dennis Reimer. He argues that the threat of war in Korea and the Middle East means that the nation cannot afford to relax its two war scenario and thus must maintain a large army.

A second group of analysts holds that planning for two simultaneous major regional contingencies is like buying meteor insurance, a needless luxury. Proponents of this view, point out that when the U.S. was bogged down in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf, no other nation took advantage of that fact by starting a conflict somewhere else in the world. They argue that even if the U.S. was temporarily unprepared to fight a second regional conflict, the potential aggressor would have to know that the U.S. would eventually be able to bring awesome military power to bear against it. Both the current air force chief of staff, Ronald Fogelman, and his predecessor, Tony McPeak, support this position because it would mean smaller ground forces and more funds for airpower.

A third group holds that the U.S. should not plan for two MRCs because maintaining the requisite force size in an appropriate state of military readiness consumes too large a portion of the defense budget. Consequently, the modernization or investment account is under funded. Members of this school of thought accept the Joint Chiefs' position that the U.S. should be buying $60 billion worth of new weapons annually rather than the current level of about $40 billion. Funding at this level would allow the Pentagon to spend $86 billion to purchase 422 F22 air superiority fighters, $78 billion for 1,000 F/A-18E/Fs, $220 billion for 3,000 joint strike fighters, and $50 billion for 425 V22s. In his confirmation hearings, the new secretary of defense, William Cohen, indicated that the Pentagon must increase procurement funding as soon as possible; not 10 years from now.

A fourth group argues that the U.S. military should focus more on its peacekeeping or peace-enforcement capabilities as opposed to the MRC's. People with this view argue that U.S. forces are much more likely to be engaged in a Bosnia-, Haiti-, and Rwanda-type situations than a major war in the Gulf or on the Korean Peninsula. Therefore, while the U.S. should always have the capability for handling at least one major contingency, it should also have a substantial peacekeeping force. Analysts refer to this as a "one war plus" strategy. It too is supported by air force leaders.

A fifth group holds that even within budgetary constraints, the Pentagon can have a two-war strategy and still fund its modernization needs by becoming more business-like. Proponents of this view argue that the Pentagon can free up about $100 billion over the next five years by reforming the procurement process, eliminating excess infrastructure and support (more base closings, consolidate intelligence, logistics), exploiting new technologies rather than buying more platforms, and cutting back on the readiness of some of the combat forces (readiness spending per capita is higher than it was in the cold war). These savings then can be applied to funding modernization and paying for peacekeeping operations, while maintaining the combat force structure necessary to fight two major regional contingencies. Senators like Charles Robb (D-VA) and John McCain (R-AZ) and Congressmen like Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-OH) are advocates of this view.

However, what is missing from the official debate is a realistic assessment of the threat, a rational discussion of the amount actually needed for modernization and peacekeeping, and a true understanding of how much the U.S. is spending on defense compared to our potential adversaries. When each of these areas is analyzed dispassionately, it is clear that the official debate is taking place along the wrong lines.

As a result of the BUR, the Pentagon argued that it would need a force of 11 ground divisions, 10 tactical air wings, and six aircraft carriers or some 400,000 people in each theater. In deciding how many forces to send to Korea, the Pentagon postulated that each North Korean soldier was as effective as an American and 30 percent more effective than a South Korean fighting person. Talk about worst case analysis. Given the small amount of training done by North Korea and the age of its equipment, it is hard to make a rational argument that a North Korean soldier is more effective than a South Korean, let alone an American. A recent intelligence assessment concluded that the South Korea military could handle North Korea, by itself. This is not surprising given that South Korea has twice the population and 50 times the GDP of the North.

Similarly, when deciding upon what forces to send to the Persian Gulf, the Clinton administration assumed that we would be fighting the pre-Desert Storm Iraqi military by ourselves and would let Iraq take Kuwait again before we evicted them. The current Iraqi military threat is less than half of what it was in 1990. During the Persian Gulf war, our European and Arab allies contributed about 200,000 people to the conflict. And unlike 1990, the U.S. has 20,000 troops in the region and the capability to double that force in a matter of days. In 1994 and again in 1996, this capability deterred Saddam Hussein when he moved his forces toward the Kuwaiti border.

The Joint Chiefs' figure on the amount needed for modernization has us in a race with ourselves. No other nation in the world is modernizing or recapitalizing their force at anywhere near the rate we currently are. For example, the current modernization or investment budget of the U.S., which the chiefs argue is too low, is 40 percent more than all our allies combined, 75 percent more than either Russia or China, and 90 percent more than Iraq and North Korea together. Since we already enjoy a vast technological edge on the rest of the world, and are already investing more than anyone else, why is more needed? Why, for example do we need to buy a new generation of air superiority fighters when the F-16s, F-15s, and F/A-18C/Ds we have are already the best in the world. Nor is peacekeeping gobbling up large portions of the defense budget; from 1992 to 1996 it cost less than $20 billion.

Finally, there is the myth that Clinton has slashed defense spending well below the level he inherited from President Bush. It is true that in his first year in office Clinton cut the proposed $1.4 trillion Bush 1994-1998 defense program by $127 billion, or less than one percent. However, in the 1994-1996 period, Clinton and the Republican Congress have added almost all of those funds back. In order to preempt Congress and show how tough he is on defense, Clinton himself added $70 billion to his own program, and Congress has added (and Clinton approved) another $20 billion. Even before these additions, U.S. defense spending already exceeded that of all the major powers in the world combined. Moreover, when one adds the expenditures of our NATO allies, Israel, Japan, and South Korea to ours, we account for 80 percent of the world's total expenditures.

A realistic QDR could reduce defense spending significantly without jeopardizing our national security. An objective assessment of the threat would show that we have more than enough forces to protect our interests in the Persian Gulf and on the Korean Peninsula, and that our forces are already increasing their technological advantage at the current levels of defense spending. Moreover, history and logic make it clear that it is not likely that two conflicts would erupt simultaneously. Finally, getting the Pentagon to be more businesslike could save about $100 billion over the next five years. Thus, the Pentagon budget could easily be reduced significantly. As Newt Gingrich recently put it, the Pentagon could be shrunk to a triangle. But it will not happen with a Democratic president afraid to challenge the military and a Republican Congress sensing that the president is vulnerable on defense. A real QDR apparently will have to wait until an Eisenhower- or Nixon-type Republican comes to power again. In the meantime, we will continue to spend billions of dollars more than is necessary.