The second was the "Bottom Up Review." Billed as a comprehensive review of U.S. military policy in the post-cold war era, its results disappointed many. As a congressperson, Aspin had advocated a win-hold-win" strategy in which the United States would possess an armed force capable of defeating an aggressor at bay. Once the first aggressor was defeated, the United States would turn its full resources to bear against the second and defeat it as well. Instead of embracing this strategy, the Bottom Up Review reaffirmed the "two-war" strategy that had been guiding U.S. force decision. Under this policy, the United States needs the simultaneous ability to fight and win two wars.
Cut. Reducing spending on new weapons may not be enough. It may also be necessary to do something that the Bottom up Review did not really do: make major cuts in the size of the military forces themselves. The fear expressed by analysts such as Caroline Ziemke and Joseph Romm is that when this happens the United States will return to the cost-cutting practices of the 1970s post-Vietnam era. Rather than cut back on the overall size of the military establishment, cuts were made in such invisible areas as spare parts, ammunition, training, and maintenance. The result was "hollow forces," a military establishment that looked robust on paper but was sorely lacking in readiness and could not be sustained over a long period of time.
The Defense Department's value system
Secretary of Defense. Secretaries of defense generally have adopted one of two roles. The first is that of the generalist. According to James Roherty, the generalist recognizes and defers to military expertise. He is concerned with coordinating and integrating the judgement he receives from the military professionals. He sees himself as being the Defense Department’s representatives in the policy process. In contrast, the functionalist is concerned with consolidating management and policy control in the office of the secretary of defense. The functionalist rejects the notion that there exists a unique area of military expertise, and he sees himself as first among equals in defense policy decisions making. Above all else the functionalist seeks to effectively manage the system in accordance with presidential policy objectives.
Among the early secretaries of defense, James Forrestal adopted the generalist perspective while Robert McNamara was a functionalist. McNamara's tenure was significant for his efforts to expand the range of issues that the secretary of defense had control over and the methodology used in making decisions. Until McNamara, even functionalist-oriented secretaries of defense largely restricted themselves to managing the budgetary process and mediating between inter service rivalries. McNamara sought and acquired a voice in designing defense policy. In doing so he brought Planning, Programming, and Budgetary Systems (PPBS) analysis to the Defense Department. As was commonplace in other government bureaucracies, the Defense Department’s budget was organized by department (Army, Navy, and Air Force) and broken down into such traditional categories as personnel, maintenance, and construction. Under PPBS "all military forces and systems were grouped into output-oriented programs according to their principal mission [conventional defense of Europe, nuclear deterrence], even though mission cut across traditional service boundaries categories." Cost-benefit calculations were then made on whether or not to acquire a new system. Based on this type of decision calculus, the B-70 manned bomber, the Sky bolt missile, and nuclear naval vessels were rejected while the Poseidon submarine, F-111 fighter, and the Minuteman III missile were accepted.
Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush's secretary of defense, established himself from the very outset of the administration as a functionalist who organization. While few seem to disagree that urgent reform is necessary, Rumsfeld has encountered stiff resistance from senior officers and congress people over his proposals. In part this is a matter of style. Rumsfeld is considered brusque, and many of his opponents feel that they have not been adequately consulted. He selected a military reformer, Andrew Marshall, who was a longtime antagonist of the military for his frequent questioning of the need for carriers, tanks, and short-range fighters. It is also a matter of the content of the proposed reforms. Rumsfeld proposed to do away with the "two major war" benchmark. While unclear on what measure of fitness is to replace this standard, it is clear that he wants American military strategy focused more on Asia than on Europe. Rumsfeld wants to cut the B-1 bomber force by one third and close military bases as a cost-saving device in order to invest more funds in next-generation weapons. One of those weapons systems will be a national ballistic missile defense system. Finally Rumsfeld has sought to make good on a Bush campaign promise to significantly cut the number of nuclear warheads, prompting the commander of U.S. strategy forces to term the proposal as "naive and mistaken." He referred senators to a 1997 Clinton administration nuclear posture review that endorsed the existing nuclear triad. Complicating matters for Rumsfeld was the Bush administration's tax cut, which effectively postponed any significant boost in military spending until at least 2003. The $18.4 billion the Bush administration requested for FY 2002 was below the amount desired by Rumsfeld and the JCS.
The situation changed dramatically for both Rumsfeld and the budget following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001. Wishing to avoid conflict with the president, Congress passed a $343.3 billion defense bill that gave President Bush much of what he asked for, including $8.3 billion for missile defense. Funds to combat terrorism were increased from $1 billion to $7 billion. The contentious issues of base closing was sidestepped by the creation of a new commission that would make recommendations on which bases to close. Bowing to House opposition to further base closing the White House agreed that the commission would begin its work in 2005 rather than 2003 as Bush wanted. Despite rumors that he had been seriously weakened politically by his failure to achieve significant military reforms, Rumsfeld now become one of the key administration decision makers in pursuing the war against terrorism in Afghanistan.
Professional military To understand the system of value operating inside the Defense Department, we must also look at the outlook that the professional military has on policy making. Two different general sets of perspectives exist. The traditional view sees the professional soldier as being above partisan politics. A clear line separates military and political affairs, and professional soldiers are expected to restrict themselves to speaking out only on those subjects falling within their sphere of expertise. In the fusionist perspective the professional soldier must acquire and use political skills if he or she is to exercise an effective voice on military matters. Moreover, the line separating military decisions from political ones is blurred. No pure area of military expertise exists wherein the professional soldier can expect to find his or fusionist, military involvement in traditional nonmilitary areas is all but guaranteed by the increasing use of the military as an instrument of foreign policy and by problems of resource scarcity.