Letter from Washington

Remember all that talk about tough choices ahead for the Defense Department in a new era of fiscal austerity? Well, it isn’t going to happen. Though the screws may tighten, Pentagon planners have no intention of abandoning any major weapons system that they have their hearts set on. These planners—experienced bureaucrats who are much cleverer than the press thinks—have been preparing for a fiscal crunch for some time now. The crunch arrived in the closing months of the Reagan Administration, with orders to cut $300 billion from the Pentagon’s five-year budget projection.

The Pentagon has now unveiled the first half of its plan for doing so, according to which total Defense Department spending for the fiscal years 1990 through 1994 will weigh in at about $1.7 trillion, roughly $260 billion less than the Pentagon’s last five-year plan, drawn up in 1987. Remarkably, Pentagon planners have found a way to effect savings of that magnitude with hardly a trace of real sacrifice.

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Remember all that talk about tough choices ahead for the Defense Department in a new era of fiscal austerity? Well, it isn’t going to happen. Though the screws may tighten, Pentagon planners have no intention of abandoning any major weapons system that they have their hearts set on. These planners—experienced bureaucrats who are much cleverer than the press thinks—have been preparing for a fiscal crunch for some time now. The crunch arrived in the closing months of the Reagan Administration, with orders to cut $300 billion from the Pentagon’s five-year budget projection.

The Pentagon has now unveiled the first half of its plan for doing so, according to which total Defense Department spending for the fiscal years 1990 through 1994 will weigh in at about $1.7 trillion, roughly $260 billion less than the Pentagon’s last five-year plan, drawn up in 1987. Remarkably, Pentagon planners have found a way to effect savings of that magnitude with hardly a trace of real sacrifice.