DEFENSE: Arming to Disarm in the Age of Detente

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many Americans, educated by the achievements and rhetoric of the President and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to believe that the U.S. and the Soviet Union are well into a new era of trade and detente. Indeed, the two countries are on a new and significantly improved footing with each other. But because Nixon and Kissinger are rightly convinced that detente can only be constructed on a realistic equality of U.S. and Soviet armed might, Schlesinger and his Pentagon have a vital role to play in the Administration's grand design. Kissinger and Schlesinger work closely together, coordinating their moves, breakfasting at least once a week when the Secretary of State is in Washington. After two summits and SALT I, the nuclear balance is still, looking to the future, weighted to the Soviets' advantage. Schlesinger's task is to provide the muscle and tools to help Kissinger bring the balance back to center in further negotiations.

Schlesinger believes that to do his job will require spending more money on the military. Since 1968 defense has accounted for a steadily decreasing portion of total federal spending. The outlays for fiscal 1974 will total $79.5 billion; when adjusted for inflation, this is the lowest Pentagon spending since the Korean War began. Even before Schlesinger became Secretary of Defense, he was warning that cutting more out of military spending was a "self-defeating game" that might eventually give the Soviets the appearance—if not the reality —of being stronger than the U.S. Once in office, he was even more emphatic: "It is an enchanting illusion that you can simply take large amounts of money out of the defense budget and cut only fat and not muscle. It was an illusion in 1949, and it is an illusion that we can ill afford today."

Accordingly, Nixon will ask Congress this week for Pentagon spending of $85.8 billion next year. In addition, the President will ask Congress to vote $6.8 billion for long-term Pentagon contracts and to supplement this year's defense spending by $6.2 billion. The extra money for 1974 is needed to cover inflation and military-pay increases, as well as to buy $2.2 billion worth of ammunition and weapons to replace those shipped to Israel during the Middle East war.

Inflation and pay boosts are also responsible for $5 billion of the increase in the amount proposed for next year. But the heart of the budget argument and the portion that is aimed as a warning message at Moscow is the Pentagon request for $9.4 billion for research and development of new weapons in fiscal 1975, an amount on top of the $8.1 billion being spent for that purpose this year. Schlesinger has long believed that "the appropriate means for hedging against surprise is through an enhanced R. and D. program." The budget, the first to be drawn up under his supervision, calls for money to begin research into new missiles, a new submarine and new technology that will enable the nation to fight a limited nuclear war —something less than the all-out holocaust of reciprocal annihilation on which U.S. nuclear strategy has been based for 25 years.

Is Russia about to surpass the U.S. in atomic arms? There is, unfortunately, no objective way to quantify nuclear capability. The debate usually centers on three measurements: the number of launchers, their throw weight (payload) and the number of