35 ways to cut the defense budget.

• Author: Keisling, Phil
• Position: The Culture of Institutions

At the time we began publishing in 1969, there was not one liberal democrat in the Congress who took a truly responsible attitude toward national defense-asking what works and what doesn't and what the nation really needs. Defense was not a fashionable issue among liberals because of their opposition to Vietnam. It was remarkable, then, in 1969 when Robert Benson told Monthly readers of his "Modest proposal' '-an outline of how $9 billion (which was worth something at the time) could be cut from the Pentagon budget without reducing our national security.

But the need for defense reform was vital then and remains so today: we need a Navy that won't be hamstrung by a few Iranian mines and an Army whose troop carriers don't sink when they're supposed to float, as in the Bradley fighting vehicle. We also need to save these exorbitant sums to put them into things that are important-whether it's civilian needs or more of the weapons we really need, like cheaper, smaller, quieter submarines.

We've tried to do more than just offer a list of do's and don'ts for the Pentagon. We've tried to go after the culture of the Pentagon-howforces like the need to protect, defend, and increase budgets have made well-intentioned men and women turn outso many lousy weapons.

In 1982, Jonathan Alter and Phil Keisling's enormous piece chronicled 35 specific ways to cut the defense budget without injuring American security. "at's amazing is that papers like The Washington Post and The New York Times, with the same information and far more resources than two young editors, didn't publish similar pieces.

How can more money equal less defense? The answer, as many have been discovering, is that the enormous sums too often are devoted to small numbers of highly sophisticated weapons. We are putting too many of our eggs in too few baskets. The more money we spend, the fewer planes, submarines, and tanks we seem to get. But it is increasingly clear that the so-called "quantity versus quality" debate does not convey the whole story. Often, large numbers of simple, practical weapons are preferable to small numbers of complex ones, not only because they are cheaper and more effective en masse but because even one-to-one the simpler weapons work better.

Our argument for large-scale cancellation will cut our losses. Even some sophisticated members of Congress and the press don't understand that even weapons already in the pipeline can be cancelled with enormous savings. The...