How to Be a Cheap Hawk: The 1999 and 2000 Defense Budgets

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. militar...