Cries of 'hollow military' stifle rational debate on future spending.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Defense Watch

Like the boy who cried wolf, champions of big defense budgets are shouting "hollow military."

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For those who may be too young to remember, "hollow" was the term used to describe the U.S. military of the late 1970s. After a Vietnam War that tore the nation apart, military budgets were decimated, troops were demoralized, and the military lacked basic equipment or funds to train. The hollowness eventually caught up with U.S. forces in 1980 when they failed to rescue hostages held in Tehran.

Of late, "hollow military," has become a convenient turn of phrase that tends to cut off all rational debate about national defense priorities.

President Obama has called for $400 billion in Pentagon cuts over the next 12 years, which is hardly draconian in the context of $700 billion annual budgets and trillion-dollar a-year federal deficits. But to some defense officials and lawmakers, this is just the opening salvo of a campaign to tear down the U.S. military.

Departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates called it the "worst of all possible worlds"--cutting the budget by X percent without proper regard for the consequences. "That's the way we got the hollow military in the 1970s and in the 1990s," Gates said.

Cuts may not be wise when the military is busier than ever, said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen. "I've been in a hollow military before and I won't lead a hollow military. ... I think it would be particularly dangerous in the world that we're living in now."

One of Congress' leading defense hawks, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., accused the administration of already having started to "hollow out" the military, even though defense spending now is at its highest since World War II. "I've seen it happen after every conflict, after every war we've had," he said.

Pundits, too, are throwing around the "H" word. Thomas Ricks, a veteran defense journalist, said he worries that the military budget is "going to come down precipitously." In an interview with National Public Radio, Ricks said, "I think the military is going to be surprised at just how much the belt gets tightened." Few members of the military remember what is was like in the late '70s, "when we had what the Army chief of staff called a hollow military," he said. "We have a generation that's known, really, unlimited resources."

It speaks volumes about the paranoia of today's defense debate that "unlimited resources" and "hollow military" are used...