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
On Nov. 15, 1994, Navy Lt. Kimberly “Face” Dyson quietly made history when she became the first female pilot to fly an official combat mission for the U.S. military. No one would know her name until nearly 30 years later.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with increased tensions in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region, has generated many debates. Debates about the stability of the international order, the cohesion of NATO, and many others. But for the United States, one significant debate regards the size and expansibility of the American defense industrial base. It’s a discussion that is well past due.