Defense: More, Please.(eorge W. Bush and the Department of Defense budget)(Brief Article)

Help may still be on the way-just not yet. The Bush administration has rankled conservatives on Capitol Hill by deferring any significant increase in the defense budget until it completes a "top-to-bottom review" of military strategy. For Republicans who took seriously the Bush campaign's catch-the-falling-flag rhetoric about morale and readiness, and who know the dubious place that top-to-bottom reviews occupy in the Beltway cosmos (somewhere between a blue-ribbon panel and a bipartisan commission), this smells like a broken promise.

It's not-at least not yet. In his September 1999 speech on military policy at The Citadel, Bush promised an immediate $1 billion for increased pay, a review of America's commitments abroad (with an eye to ending U.S. civics work in the Balkans), deployment of a missile- defense system, and a comprehensive rethinking of American military policy in an effort to rationalize Pentagon practices and to invest in "skipping a generation of technology."

Bush has so far followed his script. He has delivered on the pay raise (the easy part). He is tapping on the brakes of our Balkans commitment. His evident seriousness about missile defense has already softened the opposition of our allies to the idea. And, of course, the reviewing and rethinking is in full swing. But there was an implicit promise in Bush's talk of a readiness crisis that he would, if elected, provide some immediate relief (why campaign against a crisis you are only going to perpetuate?). Analysts who agree with Bush's wheels-coming-off assessment of the military say a $5-10 billion spending boost is necessary just to keep the Army stocked in ammunition and the Navy from having to cancel deployments. But this hasn't been forthcoming, as the White House halted a scramble at Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department to prepare a supplemental spending bill that would have addressed the readiness gap.

There are two tactical considerations at play. While working to pass its tax ...