The Nation - News from Nov. 29, 1988

The Bush Administration will have to request a 2% real increase in defense spending next year unless it wants to reduce military strength overseas and cut aircraft carrier deployments, Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci said. “At 2% real growth, our current defense budget is executable,” Carlucci said in response to a question after delivering a speech at a Washington conference sponsored by the Institute of Foreign Policy Analysis to mark NATO’s 40th birthday. “ . . . If you go from 2% real growth to zero real growth, you’ve got a problem, and over a five-year period, that problem is about $116 billion in programs,” he said. The only alternative to cuts in strength would be “to hollow out our forces--shortchange them in ammunition, readiness, let the quality of our people erode--and I hope we would avoid that.”