Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Has the Senator from Wisconsin asked unanimous consent for an additional minute above the time that was allocated?

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, if the Senator----

Mr. COATS. Will the Senator from California yield?

Mr. COATS. Taking cuts in defense.

Mr. COATS. If the Senator had incorporated figures from 1985 to the present, you would see an entirely different picture. By drawing the line at what might happen in the next 5 years, you are ignoring what happened in the last 10 years. There has been a dramatic decrease in real dollars in defense spending for the last 10 straight years. But that is not on the Senator's chart.

Mr. COATS. Will the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. COATS. There will be no excuse. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS. Since Navy officials were short last year of $300 million in operations funds due to increased tempo of operations, they reduced flying hours for squadrons aboard carriers. Marines getting home from a 6-month deployment to Somalia aboard the USS Inchon were sent to Haiti 12 days after they reached home. One general reports, ``Strategic lift in this country is broken right now.'' He warns that most U.S. military capability would not begin to arrive at a regional conflict for 3 months after it began. Yet the administration pretends the charade that it has a military capability to respond to two major regional crises at nearly the same time. The Marine Corps is using 50-year-old canvas tents and wearing boots from the Korean war era. These instances are isolated, but they are not uncommon. They represent an emerging trend. The inspector general of the Marine Corps commented to me, ``At some point in the near future, the current funding strategy will ultimately undermine the corps' ability to meet war-fighting and peacetime presence requirements.'' It is the same story in every branch. Mr. President, in conclusion, the reason that we must be concerned is simple. We cannot afford as a nation to repeat the patterns of the past, a pattern of American withdrawal followed by major costly commitments. We need the ability to consistently shape our strategic future, not just to respond when it falls in disorder. And that requires both readiness and continued technological advances. There is no simple formula for avoiding war, but some things clearly do not [[Page S 11383]] work. Again, Donald Kagan observed, ``Good will, unilateral disarmament, avoidance of alliances, teaching and preaching the evils of war are of no avail.'' Denying our leadership and power will not keep the peace. The peace is kept by ``active effort, planning, the expenditure of resources, and sacrifice.'' It is reinforced by the possession of superior force and the will to use it skillfully. It was World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon who said 76 years ago, ``Look down, and swear by the slain of war that you'll never forget.'' We best preserve that memory by recalling how war is prevented. It is not a task for the weak. It rests on a large vision of our Nation's role. And it involves the inescapable necessity of American leadership. We can save money by shirking from this duty. Yes, we can. But we will not in the long run save the peace or save American lives. Kagan concludes in his ``On The Origins of War,'' with a warning: The United States and its allies, the states with the greatest interest in peace and the greatest power to preserve it, appear to be faltering in their willingness to pay the price in money and the risk of lives. Nothing could be more natural in a liberal republic, yet nothing could be more threatening to the peace they have recently achieved. This is worth remembering in this debate.

Mr. COATS. I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from South Carolina. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas for the reasons that have been previously stated relative to the contribution of defense spending to reducing our deficit over the past decade, the limitations on commitment to defense spending for the next 7 years as opposed to the significant increases in spending that will go to a number of programs but particularly to Medicare and Medicaid, and for the reasons stated by Senator from Georgia, and the Senator from South Carolina. However, what I would like to do is to discuss this proposal to allow further reductions in defense spending in a broader context. There are some on the left who view every defense dollar as a dollar that is taken from social spending. And in all candor there are some on the right who view every defense dollar as a dollar taken from deficit reduction. I submit, Mr. President, that neither can understand why we are asking for more money in this legislation than the President requested, albeit a very small amount more, $7 billion. Both I think the left and the right are missing the big picture of history by focusing on the small print of the budget. There is a great deal at stake in this debate. Defense spending must be placed in a broader context. That context is outlined with exceptional clarity by historian Donald Kagan in his new book ``On the Origins of War''. In case after case, he argues, war has been ``The product of the failure of the victors * * * to construct a solid basis for peace.'' He goes on to say, ``A persistent and repeated error through the ages has been the failure to understand that the preservation of peace requires active effort, planning, the expenditure of resources, and sacrifice, just as war does.'' This historical fact should sober us. Great, victorious powers have a special burden, and are especially prone to misjudgment. They have a tendency, Kagan says, to be either too hard or too soft, or both in succession. They can be motivated by the highest ideals, but still lack the will to secure them. In this way, leaders who desire peace can encourage war. Sustaining the peace is always an act of will and design--based on diplomatic and military strength. The history of America has become the central feature of the history of the world. We did not seek that position through imperial ambition-- but we have been selected, nonetheless, for great responsibilities. This should focus our minds, and focus this debate. I'm looking at this we are not left without guidance from the past. Every generation imagines itself exempt from the laws of history, and every generation is forced to follow them. Those laws can be respected or resented, but not changed or ignored. It is a useful exercise to clarify and repeat them, as Donald Kagan and others have done. Listen to his rules. The first rule is that peace is not a natural condition. The New World Order is destined to disorder. Moments of international calm have never prevented future conflict. Every prediction of perpetual peace has been disappointed. The reason is rooted in human character. British military historian Michael Howard comments, ``We have not improved as people, however much we have improved as technologists.'' That should be obvious from the 50 conflicts that rage in the world at this moment. The second rule is that war is always a surprise. Strategies that depend on long warning periods or time for preparation, are bound to fail. Deterrence with current power is the only adequate insurance against the unknown. During the cold war, the experts said that the likely warning time of a Warsaw Pact attack on NATO was somewhere between 3 days and 3 months. After German reunification, we discovered that Warsaw Pact readiness would have allowed for an attack in 3 hours. Paul Wolfowitz of Johns Hopkins draws this lesson from our experience in Korea in 1950. Just 5 years after the height of American power in World War II, he says, ``A third-rate power almost kicked the U.S. off the peninsula.'' It was not until 4 months later that General MacArthur was able to launch the Inchon landing that started a 3-year fight back to Korea's original borders. In a regional conflict, an enemy does not judge America's potential power, but our actual force. ``The bottom line,'' says Wolfowitz, ``is that people are judging your will, your capability to deliver.'' The third rule is that war is prevented by creating a prohibitive cost for disturbing the status quo, and exacting that cost cannot be done by international institutions. The United Nations is sometimes useful, but it is not an alternative to American power. In September of 1993, President Clinton declared that ``U.N. peacekeeping holds the promise to resolve many of this era's conflicts.'' Six days later a company of U.S. Rangers under U.N. command was decimated in Mogadishu. In the last few years, we have had a short but decisive experiment with what Madeleine Albright called ``aggressive multilateralism.'' That experiment has failed miserably and millions of people have been subjected to war and humanitarian failure. Fourth, Kagan says the ability to take swift, firm, early action against aggressors is the best way to prevent large, protracted, painful action in the future. He argues that tentativeness among great powers is one of the principal causes of war. He analyzed a series of avoidable conflicts and concluded: Unwilling to commit themselves clearly and firmly to the price of defending the peace that they so badly wanted to maintain, they had to pay the price of a long, bloody, costly, devastating, and almost fatal war. The history of this century bears out the truth of that statement. Unable, unwilling to commit ourselves clearly and firmly to the price of defending peace, millions in this world in this century have been subjected to long, bloody, costly, devastating, almost fatal wars. Defending that peace depends, ironically, on not a defensive but an offensive military capability. A defensive posture, no matter how strong, is not sufficient. At the beginning of World War II, neither France nor Britain deployed a credible offensive force because the Western leaders and many of their people, again quoting Kagan: . . . did not examine their situation objectively and realistically but emotionally and hopefully. They were moved by the horror of war, the fear of its reappearance, and the blind hope that a refusal to contemplate war and prepare for it would somehow keep the peace. Our concept of cost effectiveness must be deeper and more serious than it often is today. Our choice, our real choice is not between the B-2, for example, and Head Start. Our real decision is between a cutting edge military capable of offensive operations and an unthinkable, immeasurable future cost in American lives and American resources. Kagan's fifth rule is that democracies are not particularly good at making and keeping these commitments. Kagan comments that they are motivated by ``an ethical system that is commercial, individualistic, and libertarian.'' Their governments are under continual demand to ``satisfy domestic demands at the expense of the requirements of defense.'' That is what we are seeing in the amendment of the Senator from Arkansas and what we have seen year after year in amendment after amendment. It can lead us to a dangerous situation, because democracies can be handicapped in the maintenance and use of power. They invite challenges, and when those challenges come they are often not fully prepared. Kagan's final rule is that politicians have always had the tendency to interpret history to fit their budgets, not the other way around. They have a vested interest in the assumption of peace because the assumption of peace matches domestic fiscal need. These facts of history, of course, are not a strategy by themselves, but they should inform our strategic approach. And I would suggest it is time we had a strategic approach. Some of the delay in creating a vision for America's role in the world is understandable. We are still emerging [[Page S 11382]] from the conceptual grip of the cold war for four decades that consumed our attention and consumed our creativity, but now the absence of a self-confident American self-image is beginning to create risks. It does not take much imagination to imagine what our threats are. Eighty percent of North Korea's forces are within 100 kilometers of the DMZ. Tensions between India and Pakistan are high. Iran is more assertive. Iraq is unpredictable. Algeria is on the edge of Islamic revolution, threatening Egypt as well. Will there be conflict in Macedonia? Will we face a bad outcome in Russia? Some of the categories of threats against international stability ought to be evident to all of us: The proliferation of conventional weapons; the disintegration of political order; the proliferation of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. All of these threats can be controlled with decisive, aggressive action, but if they are allowed to run their course the consequences would be hard to contain and the costs could be terribly high. I suggest, Mr. President, that containing the crises that face us in the post-cold-war era depends on two things. First, it depends on American superiority in new weapons, something that is costly to maintain. America, for example, has held the lead in Stealth technology. The price was high--$65 billion over 20 years. No one can now argue that this investment was wasted. Second, early decisive, decisive American involvement depends on a commitment to act, not just react. We need to aggressively shape the security environments of the gulf area, Asia and Europe, not just respond to crisis after crisis, emergency after emergency. This is the best way to minimize our future commitment. This presents a challenge. America's lead in military power and technology can easily result, if we are not careful, in complacency. Historically, the United States has made the error of excessive downsizing again and again. Each time has resulted in tragedy, and I fear that we may be starting down that path once more. Never in the history of this country have we successfully downsized after a victorious conflict--never. Each time, we have paid a significant price in terms of the loss of American lives, the commitment of resources that otherwise would not have had to have been committed, the lack of preparedness that had led to the subsequent conflict. Next year, as has been pointed out, will be the 11th consecutive year of real decline in defense spending. When President Clinton took office, he doubled his projected defense cuts to get deficit reduction without a net increase in domestic spending. We have reduced military personnel by 23 percent. We are headed for a 33 percent cut by 1999. Our military is a third smaller than it was just 10 years ago. To suggest that the Defense Department has not done its share in addressing the budget deficit or freeing up funds for domestic discretionary spending is factually totally inaccurate. As was pointed out by the Senator from New Mexico earlier, since 1990, defense discretionary spending has decreased 10 percent and all other nondefense discretionary spending has increased 36 percent. In the next 7 years, while defense will decrease $13 billion in real spending, Medicaid will increase $149 billion and Medicare $349 billion. How can we begin to suggest that after 11 years of reductions, after reducing our Air Force and Navy and Marines and Army by a third, defense has not done its share? I ask the Senator from Arkansas to name one program, one Federal program that has cut anything, that has even begun to match what the Department of Defense has done. I doubt that he can. In October of last year, Anthony Lake from the administration argued, ``The Cassandras attacking our readiness are wrong.'' But just a few weeks later an audit revealed that one-fourth of the Army's active combat divisions were less than combat ready and that one armored brigade and one mechanized brigade, both quick-reaction units, could not carry out their missions on short notice. With projected levels of spending, America could soon be short of the resources to fight on two fronts by 3 army divisions, 6 tactical air wings, 4 carriers, and 40,0005 marines. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is spending less on new weapons and equipment than at any time in the last 50 years. Let me repeat that. The Pentagon is spending less on new weapons and equipment than at any time in the last 50 years. To suggest there is some kind of spending binge going on over at the Pentagon is factually and totally inaccurate. In 1996, the Navy will purchase just three new ships. The Army will not even order one new tank. All four services combined will buy only 20 replacement jet fighters compared to 458 they bought in 1980. Now, the theory behind this pattern is clear. We are living off the procurement of the Reagan years, weapons that were designed in the 1970's and procured in the 1980's. We are depending on military technology that is already in the pipeline. We are not even spending enough to replace existing equipment before it wears out. We are often preserving force structure by gutting procurement and research and development funds. All this has left us in the early stages of a predictable decline. American forces have more commitments than ever before, but those commitments are not matched by sufficient resources. Our soldiers, sailors, and airmen are asked to patrol more broadly, with decreasing force, while trying to keep acceptable personnel rotations and operations tempo in attempting to prolong the life of older equipment. It is a challenge they meet, but with great sacrifice, and a challenge they cannot meet forever. The price. The price, as usual, is paid by the men and women who serve their country--a particular concern of mine. Deep cuts have reduced training, put pressure on military pay, forced longer deployments. This has encouraged many able people to leave and has weakened the spirit of those who remain. In Armed Services hearings before our committee, and in discussions with personnel around this country and the world, I have heard a number of disturbing reports--snapshots of the military on the verge of a serious problem. Last year, in order to stretch its forces, the Navy started gapping its presence in the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf and the Western Pacific. For a third of each year, two of those theaters will have no aircraft carrier. Since Navy officials were short last year of $300 million in operations funds----

Mr. COATS. Exactly.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, this amendment modifies section 723, amount payable by uniformed services for health care services provided outside the catchment areas of the facilities, to perfect the provision. The amendment strikes the current section and replaces it with a new section which accomplishes the intended result of protecting the Uniformed Services Treatment Facilities from being charged more than the CHAMPUS allowable costs for services provided by CHAMPUS providers to USTF enrollees who are treated when they are outside the USTF catchment area. The Uniformed Services Treatment Facilities and the Department of Defense concur in this change. I understand this amendment is agreed to on both sides. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for immediate consideration. This amendment modifies section 712, provision of TRICARE uniform benefits by uniformed services treatment facilities, to change the date before which those enrolled in a USTF program would not be required to convert to the uniform benefit. Section 712 currently would grand father those enrolled in a USTF health care program on or before January 1, 1995. This amendment would change this date to October 1, 1995. This change will enable the USTF's to enroll eligible personnel in the August-September 1995 enrollment period under the current benefit program. Any enrollment after October 1, 1995, would be subject to the TRICARE uniform benefit. I understand this amendment is agreed to on both sides.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today it stand in recess until the hour of 9 a.m. on Thursday, August 3, 1995; that following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be deemed approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then immediately resume consideration of S. 1026, the Department of Defense authorization bill, with Senator Dorgan to be recognized as under the previous order.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I move to table the motion. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2085 (Purpose: To exclude the Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support from grade limitations applicable to members of the Armed Forces)

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, some time ago, I contacted the Department of Defense raising my concerns about the status of military housing. As chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee and someone that is charged with looking out for the quality of life of our military personnel, survey after survey, inquiry after inquiry, letter after letter kept raising the issue of the quality, or lack thereof, of military housing, both family housing and single soldier housing. And so I contacted the Department of Defense, and they confirmed my worse suspicions and gave me information that, frankly, was far worse than what I thought I would hear. That is, that military housing is in a deplorable State. Much of the housing is more than 30 years old. It has suffered from lack of adequate maintenance and repair because funds have been diverted to other uses. Whenever there is a crunch on the utilization or need for funds, it seems like housing has always been pushed aside to be dealt with next year. The Secretary of Defense saw that problem in his travels around the world in talking with troops, commanders, and others, and he identified this as a priority and has testified before our committee that this is one of his top priorities. He has articulately drawn the link between quality of life and readiness, and he has displayed for us and outlined for us the very sad state of military housing throughout our military. It has been neglected. We have young men and women who are committing a career to service for this country, who are given the very best of training; they are given the very best of leadership that this country can offer; they are given the very best of equipment to operate and to utilize that this country can produce. We are attracting some of the very best people that our institutions are graduating to the services today. But when it comes to providing for their living conditions, they are given not the best, not anywhere close to the best, but some of the worst housing you can find in any of our cities across the country. I have personally visited a number of barracks and a number of family housing units and a number of different bases. These are facilities that do not begin to measure up to minimum standards that we would expect. Some of the statistics are stunning: 60,000 Air Force housing units do not measure up to contemporary standards, and they are probably the best of the services; 75 percent of the Army's family housing does not even meet Department of Defense standards. I just want to inform my colleagues that Department of Defense standards are not standards that you normally find outside of the military. They are lower; they are smaller in square footage; they require less in terms of quality construction than what is normally found. I think it is a disgrace that we are putting some of our military people in some of the kind of housing that we find in our military bases. Nearly 85 percent of the Army's barracks--facilities that house single sailors and soldiers and Air Force and marines--80 to 85 percent of the Army's barracks do not meet current Department of Defense standards. So we have a huge backlog of dilapidated housing in which we are putting our Army families and putting our system military people. We have leaking roofs, air conditioners that do not work. We have latrine facilities that do not begin to meet the needs of those living in the units. Four shower heads, usually two that are not working, for about 60 to 65 soldiers. We have toilets that do not flush. We have mold that is rotting away the tile and rotting away some of the walls. We have windows that do not provide adequate seals. We have rooms that are of such small square footage that the military personnel cannot begin to put their stereo, their TV, or just a basic dresser drawer to put their clothes in. We are looking at a program here that is going to take a number of years, at least a decade, to begin to bring the facilities up to standard. When we have been able to come up with some additional funds, I think one of the top priorities for those funds needs to be adequate housing for our military personnel. I cannot speak to the portion of the military construction budget that goes to fund other items. I know we have infrastructure and other maintenance problems throughout the military. I cannot speak to that, but I can speak to the portion that goes to the housing. I am pleased that the committee has designated this as a priority. I am pleased they have adopted the criteria established by the Senate Armed Services Committee for evaluating these needs. I have had a number of discussions with the chairman of the MilCon Appropriations Subcommittee, and he has outlined for me that they have faithfully followed the criteria and the recommendations to try to get at some of the worst housing on a priority basis. To the extent that we can accelerate some funding for this crucial area, I think we ought to do that. I am supportive of this particular effort. There is a housing initiative that has been undertaken by the Department. We granted some new authority for that to the Department of Defense. Passage of this authorization bill and acceptable conference of the item will provide the Department of Defense with needed new authority to privatize some of this construction and maintenance effort, rebuilding efforts, and renovation effort. That is necessary if we are ever going to provide the kind of housing on a decent timetable for our military personnel. The combination of the military construction funds that are utilized now for building new and renovating military family housing and barracks housing and the initiative that has been undertaken by the Department of Defense with both the inside task force group and an outside task force group headed by former Secretary of the Army John Marsh, a two-pronged effort to try to deal with a very significant problem that exists today in our armed services. We have directed considerable funds to a number of tactical systems, to modernization, to readiness. If we had more, we could direct more. We wish we had more. We cannot continue to defer the construction of housing and the renovation of housing for our military personnel and claim that we are providing the necessary quality of life for themselves and their families, that will attract the kind of people we want for our military. We cannot continue to do that. We are forfeiting the future. We have postponed this now for more than a decade. It is time we undertook this project. I am thankful for the work by the chairman and the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee. I hope that we can successfully move this forward as we attempt to finalize the legislation on this effort. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COATS. The Senator from Arizona and I have joined together on a number of items. This is an area where we happen to disagree.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that H.R. 714, a bill to establish the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in the State of Illinois, be placed on the calendar.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. And do you believe that would be any kind of a deterrent or appropriate response to an accidental launch of a missile?

Mr. COATS. I do, but the world has changed significantly since then. We are trying to deter something entirely different.

Mr. COATS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. COATS. The Senator from North Dakota, in answer to the Senator from Arizona as to what he would prefer, in response to what the Senator from Arizona has announced in terms of deterrence, he would prefer the deterrent that was used successfully for a long, long time, namely, we use the term ``mutually assured destruction.'' He said that our deterrence from submarines under the sea, missiles in the ground, and bombers in the air would be his proposed solution to a ballistic missile attack on the United States. My question to the Senator is, do you believe that mutually assured destruction is the preferred solution to, say, an accidental launch?

Mr. COATS. How does the Senator propose to deal with an accidental ballistic missile launch in the United States? The Senator suggested that mutually assured destruction was the deterrent to that and the way to respond. I do not agree with the Senator. I wonder what his solution was to that question.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, the Senate will resume the Department of Defense authorization bill at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. At that time, Senator Dorgan is to be recognized to offer an amendment regarding national missile defense. That amendment has a 90-minute time limitation, therefore Senators should be aware that, if all debate time is used, a rollcall vote can be expected at approximately 10:30 a.m. tomorrow morning.