The republics of the former Soviet Union appear to be slashing weapons purchases dramatically to devote more money to feeding and housing increasingly disaffected troops, top intelligence officials told Congress.
Apparently included in the cutbacks are strategic nuclear forces, regarded as the only remaining potential threat to the United States or its allies, said CIA Director Robert Gates and Gen. James R. Clapper Jr., director of the Defense Intelligence Agency."The intentions of the new commonwealth states toward the West have clearly changed, and overall the military capabilities of Russia and the successor states are in profound decline," Clapper said Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The blunt testimony could add pressure for even steeper cuts in Pentagon spending than President Bush is said to be contemplating in his State of the Union address and budget proposals to be delivered to Congress next week.
Military procurement by the Russian republic for the first quarter of this year "appears to have been cut by about 80 percent" compared with past years, Clapper testified.
In a related matter, sources said arms reduction talks under way between the United States and Russia could lead to a cut in the American submarine missile force.
Overall, the U.S. initiative could result in scrapping up to about 20 percent of the long-range nuclear arsenal that would be left under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START.
The sources, speaking Wednesday evening on condition of anonymity, said Secretary of State James A. Baker III broached the idea with leaders of the Russian republic on his trip to Moscow last month.
President Bush is likely to discuss the plan in his State of the Union address Tuesday, the sources told The Associated Press.
In another development, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that the Pentagon will seek to save billions of dollars by freezing virtually all future defense programs after the weapons are designed and developed but before they go into production.
The Times cited unnamed sources as saying the proposed freeze would save billions in procurement costs for big-ticket projects at a time when the Defense Department is under pressure to reduce its budget in the wake of the end of the Cold War.
Officials said the proposal will be unveiled when the Pentagon submits its 1993 budget this month and is a response to world changes that give U.S. military planners at least a year's warning of significant needs for advanced combat capabilities.
Gates said the strategic forces of the defunct Soviet Union are suffering significant cuts in capabilities, with training cut back and modernization "likely to be delayed or abandoned."
His and Clapper's comments seemed to alarm Sen. John Warner, R-Va., who said they could be seen as in "a head-on collision" with Bush's defense budget. That budget "won't be a major departure from the current downsizing" of the U.S. military, Warner said.
Administration sources have spoken generally of a $50 billion cut over the next five years in the Pentagon's budget, which amounts to $291 billion this year.