President Clinton's 1995 defense budget, which allocates $1.29 trillion for defense from 1995 through 1999, continues his Administration ,s systematic dismantling of the nation's defenses so painstakingly rebuilt by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s., In the Clinton plan, the Department of Defense will fall short of its funding re- quirements-as outlined in the Administration's own "Bottom-Up Review"-by nearly $ 100 billion. The Ad- ministration and Congress must stop looking for "savings" in the defense budget, which has paid more than its share in cost-cutting efforts by three Administrations since the Reagan build-up peaked in 1985. To be sure, Clinton slightly raised this year's defense budget by $1.8 billion.2 However, when adjusted for in- flation, the 1995 defense budget still shows a decline of 0.9 percent. This is the tenth straight year of declining defense budgets. Furthermore, the budget will decline in inflation-adjusted terms in each of th
Bill Clinton's record in the employment of American might around the world is indefensible. Over two dozen soldiers were killed in Somalia after the President and his advisers expanded the mission there from feeding the hungry to building a nation and disarming a tribal warlord's army. No conceivable national in- terest was advanced by this change of policy. In Haiti, the decision to send in military peacekeepers to en- force a United Nations cease-fire agreement was rescinded when a United States warship was prevented from docking and humiliated by a gang of armed thugs on the pier. In the former Yugoslavia, where the President himself raised the stakes during the 1992 presidential campaign, the Administration's empty and ill-advised threats of military action to stop the bloodshed have infuriated America's European allies and very likely emboldened potential adversaries. I In national security planning, the President claimed credit throughout the year for having d