How to Be a Cheap Hawk

Two important events in 1997--the balanced-budget deal and the completion of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)--promise to shape U.S. military policy for the next several years. Unfortunately, they are at odds with each other. The balanced budget accord will result in a real level of defense spending that is 8 percent lower in 2002 than in 1998. But the proportionate cuts in personnel and weaponry that the QDR calls for are only about half that size. Moreover, the U.S. military is