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CLINTON-08/13/92
FOREIGN POLICY
PAGE #10
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The House Armed Services Chairman, Les Aspin of Wisconsin, put it right. He says the administration's base force plan leaves us with a military that does not fit our strategy and cannot do what we ask. Burdened with redundancy, lacking flexibility and mobility. Just as you don't shoot gnats with a Howitzer, we can't always respond rapidly and flexibly to far-flung regional conflict with forces designed primarily for warfare in Europe. In other words, we must not merely decide how much force we need but we must design the right kind of forces.
To lead and build effective coalitions we must also have the ability to operate on our own if necessary.
We need to base a larger fraction of our forces in the United States but then to maintain a modern and well-equipped Navy and Marine Corps so that we can quickly project our power wherever it is needed. Our new military must be more mobile because the new world will simply not be one of fixed flashpoints. We need the additional sealift that this administration has refused for too long to build. We also need the capacity of the C17 airlifter which can fly long distances and then land on short fields close to the front.
Our new military must be more agile because with the end of the nuclear standoff, new battlefields will likely be dominated by maneuver, speed and out-thinking the enemy That is why, for example, I support a technology this administration has tried to cancel, the V22, because it is the only aircraft capable of certain special operations, including the rescue of Americans deep in hostile territory. And as the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Dave McCurdy, has said, we must have superior intelligence to know where to apply force with the best effect. we have seen in the last two years the lack of intelligence and the price it can cause.
And
Our new military must be more precise and able to reduce casualties because we may need to operate among civilian populations and because the credibility of our threat of force
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