Statement of Rudolph G. Penner, Director, Congressional Budget Office

Between 1980 and 1985, budget authority for the Department of Defense DoD increased by 51 percent after adjustment for inflation. Unfortunately, the measures available to assess what has been accomplished by that buildup are severely limited. There exists today no direct, comprehensive measure that quantifies the likelihood that U.S. forces, together with those of our allies, would prevail in a future conflict. Nor are we ever likely to develop such a comprehensive measure. My testimony today is based on a Congressional Budget Office CBO review which had a more limited objective -- namely, to summarize for the Congress data on our military forces and their capabilities. CBO did not examine the growth in Soviet forces and their capabilities. Moreover, in assessing U.S. forces, CBO accepted the Administrations overall strategic framework and priorities. We can count the numbers and types of weapons we can also assess improved capability in other areas, although with less certainty. But measuring overall cost effectiveness is virtually impossible, and definitive conclusions remain elusive. The measures I will review today show improvements in various factors that are generally accepted as important indicators of U.S. military capability. The measures fall into four categories Force structure -- the number of combat units of various types Modernization -- the replacement of older equipment with newer, more sophisticated equipment Readiness -- the ability of U.S. forces to deploy and fight in the early stages of a conflict and Sustainability -- the ability to sustain prolonged combat to a successful resolution. Based on those measures, there has been general improvement in all aspects of military capability between 1980 and 1985. With a few exceptions, such as quality of personnel, however, quantitative measures of performance show only modest improvements. In many areas, quality is, of course, harder to measure.