Choices at defense

When George W. Bush becomes commander in chief later this month, he will inherit a Defense Department at a crossroads. For years Defense has been hedging its bets, attempting to be all things to all who made demands of it. Whether the call was for warfighters, peacekeepers, nation builders, disaster

relief workers or distributors of humanitarian assistance, Defense has been ready and willing to provide whatever troops and equipment were needed. Despite huge cuts in personnel and resources following the Cold War, service leaders were able to juggle the demands of what the senior George Bush termed the "new world order," largely by living off the excess warfighting capacity necessitated by Cold War planning.

The bills for the Pentagon's expanded role over the last decade are fast coming due. The strains on the services, as reflected in recruiting and retention shortfalls and flagging readiness indicators, have been showing for years. The new administration will soon face key decisions about national military strategy, missile defense and the future of hugely expensive weapons-decisions that will reverberate for years to come. And if that isn't pressure enough, the Pentagon's current spending plans outstrip the agency's annual budget by billions of dollars each year, making those choices all the harder. For the first time in more than a decade, DoD will be forced to make real trade-offs in its planning. No longer can the department maintain forces to fight two wars simultaneously and provide peacekeeping troops on demand anywhere, any time and build a national missile defense system and buy a host of new weapons, including three new types of fighter aircraft that together are expected to top $300 billion.