Modernization spending should not slow down.

• Author: Farell, Jr., Lawrence P.
• Position: President's perspective

The Defense Appropriations bill signed by President Bush last month--which provides $368.2 billion for fiscal year 2004--continues the upward trend in military spending that began more than two years ago, after the Sept. 11 attacks, as the United States engaged in a global war on terrorism.

The sum represents a $3.8 billion increase over fiscal year 2003 (excluding the amounts provided in the Iraq supplemental in April 2003), and is $3.5 billion below the president's fiscal year 2004 budget request.

It may be surprising to many that the weapons-buying account only makes up 20 percent of the entire defense budget. That is still a lot of money, but the reality today is that the substantial increases we are seeing in defense spending are not going into procurement accounts.

That is not to say that there are not other, more pressing, budgetary priorities, such as personnel costs, contingency operations and enhancements to the health-care benefits of military retirees. But it's important to understand that, unless recapitalization spending keeps up, our forces ultimately could pay the price.

Congress appropriated just over $74 billion for procurement of new weapon systems in fiscal year 2004. That is more than $1 billion above the administration's request, but still considerably below the levels that many experts and military leaders have said is needed to recapitalize the force. Military service chiefs, for example, have testified in recent years that at least $90 billion to $100 billion a year is needed for the Defense Department to modernize the force and replace rapidly aging systems.

The president's budget plan for the next five years projects that procurement will jump to $77 billion in 2005, $84 billion in 2006, $94 billion in 2007, $104 billion in 2008, and $112 billion in 2009.

The plan certainly moves in the right direction. But it will not be easy to get there, if history is any guide. As has been the case in recent years, procurement accounts inevitably become "bill payers" for short-term needs, like readiness, operations, maintenance and military pay raises. Add to that the mounting costs associated with the war on terrorism, homeland defense and the reconstruction of Iraq, and it's easy to see how difficult it will be to fund procurement programs, particularly those big-ticket items such as new aircraft, ships and ground combat vehicles. Most of the platforms out in the field today were produced in the 1980s, and therefore are...