Word: nationally
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...debate began stirring in scholarly journals, inside think tanks and on Capitol Hill. It has assumed a heightened sense of urgency during the SALT hearings, in which both expert witnesses and Senators have been expressing grave concern about the state of the nation's military strength. Armed with volumes of facts and statistics, they have convinced a growing number of citizens that the U.S. can no longer afford to postpone tough and costly defense decisions if it intends to remain a superpower. As a result, a consensus has been emerging that favors a stronger U.S. military establishment, something that would...
...decision about how much is to be spent on arms should be made on other, noneconomic grounds." It is notable that those years when the Pentagon budget was largest in real dollars, and took its greatest share of the G.N.P. and federal budget, were also the years when the nation enjoyed some of its lowest inflation rates. In 1955 inflation was nil, and in 1965 it was around 2%. Increases of more than 2,000% in Government spending on health and housing in the past decade, declares Nunn, show that the pattern of inflation fits "the real increase in nondefense...
...maintained, in fact, that a nation's most fundamental social-welfare obligation to its citizens is to defend them against attack. The responsibility for this is entrusted to the armed forces, but the U.S. military has been denied sufficient resources to fulfill the responsibility...
Even more critical perhaps is another question: Are Americans willing to pay the price? There is, of course, a widespread sense that the U.S. confronts a deadly threat from the Soviets, and that something must be done about it. But deciding what to do will test the nation's confidence and nerve as well as its ability to see issues in a long-term perspective. It will alsa require a challenging self-examination in which the U.S. weighs its role...
Another step to increase the nation's strategic capability, a proposal by Air Force Chief of Staff Lew Allen Jr., is to radically upgrade 155 of his F-111s. A major part of his plan: extending the fuselages of 66 of the FB-111 fighter-bombers 104 inches and installing the General Electric engines that were designed originally for the canceled B-l bomber. This would enable these FB-111s to fly into the U.S.S.R. faster (at 740 m.p.h., vs. 450 for the B-52) and more safely at low altitudes. The FB-111 would be more difficult...