The price of liberty and of defense.

THE BRITISH STATEMAN Edmund Burke, contemplating the terrors unleashed by the French Revolution, concluded that a new and frightful age was upon the world--an age that would be marked by the perpetual insecurity of nations. Burke foresaw that with the passing of Europe's golden age, "the unbought grace of life" and "the cheap defense of nations" were gone forever. He also foresaw that the emerging modern era would be dominated by "sophisters, economists, and calculators."

Two hundred years and millions of human sacrifices later, the illusion persists that the defense of nations can be bought cheaply. There is still no end of sophisters, economists, calculators, systems analysts, military reformers, and candidates for high office who claim they can defend America with less capable aircraft carriers, simpler airplanes, lighter divisions, and outmoded nuclear forces. President Reagan will be forced to contend with them throughout his second term.

Western civilization is condemned, as it were, to a Sisyphean struggle for survival. There can be no final step in the defense of the West, no miracle technology, no strategic breakthrough that will allow the burden of defense to be set aside. The fate of Sisyphus may seem hard to bear, but is it not infinitely preferable to life in a global gulag? To err on the side of too much defense may slow economic growth; to err on the side of too little is to risk our demise.

During the Carter Administration, the percentage of GNP devoted to defense dropped to 5 per cent--the lowest point in postwar American history. Years of neglect of the nation's armed forces--dating back into the Nixon and Ford Administrations--seriously weakened U.S. combat capability and readiness. The foreign-policy disasters of Carter's last year in office--the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan--underlined the international consequences of such American weakness.

Under President Reagan the proportion of GNP devoted to defense has risen to about 6.5 per cent. This remains below the proportion historically devoted to defense during most of the postwar period, despite a $116-billion defense-budget increase under Reagan. This increase has improved our combat capability and readiness, but it has not increased the overall size of U.S. forces. Nor could it have. The United States has the same number of army divisions it had in 1981, only one additional tactical air wing, fifty additional warships (largely started before 1980), and fewer ICMBs and bombers. The number of uniformed personnel has increased by less than 1 per cent. The Reagan Administration, in fact, has bought fewer M1 tanks, fewer Bradley fighting vehicles, fewer MX missiles, and fewer cruise missiles than Jimmy Carter had planned to purchase by 1984. Reagan's budget, generally speaking, proved barely sufficient to buy Carter's promises.

The money went for necessary but unglamorous items such as spare parts, ammunition, and decent salaries for servicemen. It went for research and development, whose benefits on the front line will be felt only after many years. It went for the procurement of better weapons systems--not yet in the field. But increased defense spending did not create a U.S. military leviathan; critics who speak of "an unrestrained arms race" do not know what they are talking about. U.S. forces today are no larger than four years ago and are considerably smaller than throughout mos of the postwar period. President Reagan's real a foundation for a far more credible defense in the future.

The continuing success of the Administration's defense policy requires that the President seize the initiative early in his second term and press relentlessly for certain high-priority items.

1. Continue steady growth in defense, while thinning out the number of programs. The Pentagon's most recent five-year defense plan called for a high rate of real growth--roughly 9 per cent in fiscal 1986--after which the rate of growth was projected to decline. The 1986 peak is the so-called "bow wave"--a projected massive injection of funds that has already been postponed two years by Congress. Fiscal constraints are certain to push the bow wave continually forward, wreaking havoc on orderly budgeting. Rather than trying to salvage the unsalvageable, the President should seek an early agreement with the congressional leadership on steady real growth in the range of 5 to 6 per cent each year. The Defense Department then could plan on a more realistic basis, reducing the number of programs in an overcrowded budget so that more vital programs can survive without suffering ill-conceived stretch-outs or deep cuts.

2. Press forward with strategic modernization. Throughout the postwar period, nuclear weapons have been the essential military ingredient of Western survival and the fundamental reason the world has avoided a general war. Winston Churchill understood their significance in 1949, when he said, "It is certain that Europe would have been Communized and London under bombardment some time ago but for the deterrent of the atomic bomb in the hands of the United States."

A widespread misconception about the U.S. nuclear arsenal is that its destructive power constantly increases. In fact, the total number of U.S. strategic launchers has declined by roughly 10 per cent. Moreover, the total megatonnage of the U.S. nuclear stockpile is near the lowest level in 25 years, with current yields about one quarter of the peak reached in the late 1950s. This decline in overall destructive power was made possible only by improving the quality and accuracy of our delivery systems. But the decline in U.S. defense spending in the last half of the 1970s interrupted this modernization. By the time President Reagan entered office, two legs of the strategic triad--land-based missiles and the bomber force--urgently required attention.

As a result, the percentage of the U.S. defense budget devoted to strategic nuclear systems has gone sharply upward since 1981--yet it remains far lower than during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Total spending on strategic weapons is now only slightly more than 10 per cent of overall defense spending. Strategic modernization is one area where the President simply should not yield.

3. Exploit new technologies. By the end of the century, technological advance will dramatically alter the way in which future wars are fought--or, God willing, deterred. At the forefront of this transformation will be: low-observable or "stealth" weapons, high-density microchips, technologies for achieving low-cost weaponry, "smart" conventional for achieving low-cost weaponry, "smart" conventional munitions, and new techniques that may make effective anti-ballistic missile systems possible.

It is pointless to bemoan the onrush of technology as though it, not men, were the cause of the present danger. Technology alone will not save the West, but the exploitation of it can revitalize our armed forces. The technological ingenuity of free men is one clear-cut advantage the West enjoys over the totalitarian East. It must be exploited.

4. Change defense budgeting. Reshaping the national-defense budget has become unwiedly, consuming needless man-years and generating budgets handled by too many fingers, budgets shaped more by inter-service rivalry and the congressional pork barrel than by sound strategy. The House-Senate Conference Report on the fiscal 1966 defense authorization bill was eight pages long, and the bill passed the Senate unanimously in one day, with no amendments. This year, the Senate report was 527 pages long, and the bill ran a ten-day qauntlet of 107 attempted amendments before passing. Legislative review of the defense budget is out of control. The Administration should consider backing those congressional leaders--Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, for example--who seek wuch sensible reforms as a two-year budget cycle.

Strong leadership from the White House and the Secretary of Defense is needed if inter-service rivalry is to be overcome and the national interest made the sole arbiter of disputes. The White House should look closely at the one issue no service can touch: the possible need for organizational reform of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Pressure for reform is mounting in Congress; rather than stonewalling, the Administration might profitably pick up the ball itself.

5. Mount a political offensive against rising anti-NATO sentiments at home. Shades of the Mansfield Amendment are haunting Congress once again. Pressure is growing to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Europe, or even to withdraw them entirely. Such sentiments are being voiced not only on the left, but increasinly by prominent individuals of moderate and conservative stripe whose commitment to a strong defense is indisputable. Given the inadequate performance of certain European allies in maintaining their own defenses, the inclination to lash out is understandable. But it is dangerous. Unless we reduce the overall size of an already small army, withdrawing U.S. troops from Europe would save little or no money: The same troops must still be fed, housed, and clothed.

If the savings would be small, the costs would be enormous. Western Europe would not make yeoman sacrifices in its own defense. Instead, neutralist sentiments would rise, and weaker governments would be tempted to leave the alliance and strike separate deals with the USSR. The long-term result probably would be the dissolution of NATO and neutralization of Europe. Even if not, why play into the hands of the Kremlin, which has sought a U.S. withdrawal from Europe for nearly four decades? Why take extraordinary risks in the absence of a pressing need? The President should mount a full-scale political and diplomatic offensive aimed at making the positive case for NATO at home and abroad.