The United States has had two big demonstrations of American military power on George W. Bush's watch that have been spectacularly successful. The irony here is that Bush fought these wars with the military Bill Clinton bequeathed to him.
"A commander-in-chief leads the military built by those who came before him," then-vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney said during the 2000 campaign. "There is little that he or his defense secretary can do to improve the force they have to deploy. It is all the work of previous administrations. Decisions made today shape the force of tomorrow."
On this point he was certainly correct. Despite frequent Republican criticism during the 2000 presidential campaign of Clinton-era military deterioration, the force that was so successful in Afghanistan and Iraq -- while continuing to perform a myriad of tasks around the world on a daily basis -- was clearly quite capable. Republican assertions that the military was underfunded and overstretched and that readiness was poor were contradicted by those performances in Afghanistan and Iraq. Moreover, by Vice President Cheney's own standard, this force did not result from anything done by the current administration. The first Bush defense budget went into effect on Oct. 1, 2002, and none of the funds in that budget has yet had an impact on the quality of the men and women in the armed services, their readiness for combat, or the weapons they used to destroy Taliban or Iraqi forces.
And just who is "pro-military"?
In fact, the Clinton administration actually spent more money on defense than the previous administration of President George H.W. Bush. The smaller outlays during the first Bush administration were developed and approved by then-Defense Secretary Cheney and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell. The Clinton administration did not coast on Reagan-era procurement funding. During the 1990s, the Pentagon invested more than $1 trillion in developing and procuring new weapons and information technology that gave U.S. forces such an unprecedented advantage in the last two U.S. military campaigns.
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The Clinton administration also tried to maintain the quality of military personnel by increasing their pay, and it improved retirement and health benefits for military retirees. During his presidential campaign Bush charged that the Clinton administration had overburdened the U.S. military with too many deployments overseas, and he promised to pare those military obligations. "Resources are overstretched," he said. "Frustration is up, as families are separated and strained. Morale is down. Recruitment is more difficult. And many of our best people in the military are headed for civilian life."
Yet in the name of fighting terrorism, Bush is expanding the U.S. military presence overseas faster than Clinton ever dreamed of doing. U.S. forces are not only deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Bush administration has sent advisers and support to the Philippines, Indonesia, Kuwait, Djibouti, Qatar, Yemen, Georgia, and Uzbekistan. The extra $70 billion a year that the administration has pumped into the Pentagon has bought more smart bombs and bigger paychecks, but it has not brought about a significantly larger force. Despite our expanded global war on terrorism, only about 27,000 troops have been added to our 1.4 million active-duty force.
Even with these troop additions, the military is more overstretched now than it was when Bush took office. During the first three months of 2003, the United States had more than twice as many troops on overseas missions at any given time as it did in 2000. This has made it harder to recruit and keep the soldiers, sailors, and airmen we already have. Bush did not create military overstretch, but he did campaign on fixing it. Instead, it has gotten worse.
For all the Clinton bashers out there who like to crow on about how he "gutted" the military, go read this article. And realize that Bill Clinton deserves a share of the credit for the military force we have today, the one that was successful in Afghanistan and in the initial invasion of Iraq.
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