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April 16, 2002, 8:45 a.m. Coup de Boutoir My not-so-radical argument. By Mark Helprin

here are so many inaccuracies, mistakes, and misinterpretations in the Slate critique of my National Review article ("Phony War," April 22) that they cannot be deliberate. No one could possibly be so skillful.

I have called neither for the abolition nor even for the reduction of either Medicare or Social Security, but if indeed the military increase I advocate (at the top range) were to be drawn from both, it would require a little more than a third of their funding, which would not be ending them. Other than refuting a point that was not raised, this criticism attributes to the (maximum) increase a sense of scale that is grossly inaccurate. As for the impossibility of finding the funds, throughout the latter half of the 20th century a higher funding level, both as a proportion of GNP and of the federal budget, was standard operating procedure.

I did not claim that the United States hasn't the military power to do anything about an attack by Syria, Iraq, etc. on the United States or U.S. forces, as the criticism states, but that we don't have the wherewithal to overcome an Arab/Islamic decision to deny basing, transit, and overflight rights in regard to an American campaign against Iraq. Here again is a refutation of a point that was not raised. This is called, I believe, ignoratio elenchi.

The suggestion that, according to my argument, we should gear up for fighting a war with Europe (oh my), the Kurds, Turkey, Jordan, and Russia, is accomplished (quite acrobatically) by ignoring my point that they are at present helping to block U.S. action against Iraq by a combination of diplomacy and the withholding of basing, transit, and overflight rights. I don't advocate preparing for war with Europe, or, for that matter — ignoratio elenchi — the moon.

As for the crucial question of maintaining the ability to fight a war on multiple fronts, the dreadful mistake that the critic advocates (not being able to fight a war on multiple fronts) has been throughout history much favored by regimes that have come close to extinction or no longer exist. Hitler was similarly blasé about fighting on many fronts, as was his astrologer. The Japanese erred by attacking the United States while simultaneously subduing Asia. Because the United States fought on two fronts in the Second World War while woefully underprepared to do so, the war was drawn out for years, the cost of this being, literally, scores of millions of lives. The most wasteful and pathetic result of not being prepared for multiple threats is that the outbreak of a war on a single front that fully absorbs the strength of one of the combatants encourages the appearance of second fronts that otherwise might have remained quiescent. It should be no one's business to encourage war and death, even as a result of promiscuous ignorance.

As for the critic's understanding of the aircraft carrier, he probably does not know that with enough carriers not only does economy of scale reduce the unit cost, but the carriers can, as they used to, travel two, three, or four to a task force, thus cutting the overall costs of maintaining a task force by up to four times, including the benefit of productively increasing the ratio of strike aircraft to protective and auxiliary aircraft. What he certainly does not know, and trumpets, is that with sufficient numbers of carriers we would not have to beg Saudi Arabia for basing privileges, and would have been able to deal with Iraq right off. The United States is a naval power. Naval power is the only way of realistically dealing with an ascendant China, which is at the other side of a large body of water, in which are our island allies in Asia to which, because they are popularly elected democracies, we owe some consideration. Absent our previous network of bases throughout the world, the only way to project major, continuously applied force in an area of contention is from the sea or off a beachhead. Thus, the navy, carriers, etc. He dismisses naval air power based on the number of munitions dropped, but he apparently does not know that the Navy and Marine Corps flew 75 percent of the strike sorties, because they could loiter over target and offer precisely tailored attacks. He wants to build more B-52s. I'm not against that, but let's make them as modern and capable as the upgraded B-1s. In fact, if it would please him, let's start out by calling the 31 B-1s the president is about to junk, B-52s, and we won't have to build anything but only keep what we have rather than throw it away.

And, finally, the accusation that I am "pulling a fast one," by comparing the Bush 3.1-percent-of-GNP budget with the "yearly average of 8.5 percent of GDP found from 1940 to 2000." The writer's point is that I subtracted the operational costs of the current war from the Bush budget, and did not from "any of the previous war year military budgets he considers." In fact, the top-range figure for my budget is 5.7 percent of (U.S.-estimated 2003) GNP, not 8.5 percent. That 5.7 percent is the peacetime defense spending as a proportion of GNP in the years 1940-2000. In peacetime, there are no wars, and thus no operational costs of war. That is why, to make the comparison, I subtracted the operational costs of this war. The Slate writer thought he caught me making an invalid comparison, because he was evidently unable to understand the figures. Nor, by the way (contrary to yet another example of the writer's ignoratio elenchi), do I advocate calibrating defense spending as a proportion of GNP. I use this measure as a way of understanding what has been historically possible, bearable, and traditional.

Over time I have found that to get to the truth of a question, to be as predictively accurate as possible, and to make a constructive contribution to debate, it is always good when writing about a particular subject to know what you are talking about.

— Mr. Helprin, author of Winter's Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, served in the Israeli infantry and Air Force. He is a contributing editor of the Wall Street Journal and a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.