A "Hollow Army" Reappraised: President Carter, Defense Budgets, and the Politics of Military Readiness

Authored by Professor Frank L. Jones.

October 2012

79 Pages

Brief Synopsis

For more than 3 decades, the term “hollow army” or the more expansive idiom, “hollow force,” has represented President Carter’s alleged willingness to allow American military capability to deteriorate in the face of growing Soviet capability. The phrase continues to resonate today. In this current period of declining defense resources, the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have articulated how the newly released strategic guidance and budget priorities signify a concerted effort not to “hollow out” U.S. forces. They have affirmed their dedication to preventing the recreation of the ragged military and disastrous deterioration in defense capability the Carter administration allowed to occur. However, it is also time to reexamine the term “hollow army” and its meaning as the inevitable tug of war over defense spending gets underway. This Paper places the “hollow army” metaphor within its historical context: barely 5 years after the United States finally disengaged from a major war (Vietnam), a struggling economy, and an election year in which a President was not only tenuously leading in the polls, but also confronted substantial opposition from elements of his own political party. Over the years, a specific political reading of these events has taken hold. It is the purpose of this Paper to re-read the historical events, and in doing so, come to a better understanding of the domestic political and geostrategic environment during Carter’s presidency, the U.S. Cold War strategy, and the assertions made concerning the readiness of the U.S. Army to perform its missions.

Summary

The term “hollow army” or the broader expression, “hollow force,” has as much currency today as it did when an Army Chief of Staff first uttered the phrase 3 decades ago. In this period of declining defense budgets, the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have articulated how the newly released strategic guidance and budget priorities represent a concerted effort not to “hollow out” U.S. forces. They have affirmed their dedication to preventing the re-creation of the ragged military and disastrous deterioration in defense capability the Jimmy Carter administration allowed to occur. Thus, more than 30 years later, the expression continues to be as politically potent as it was when first spoken. However, it is also time to reexamine the term “hollow army” and its meaning as the inevitable tug of war over defense spending gets underway.

This paper places the “hollow army” metaphor within its historical context: barely 5 years after the United States finally disengaged from a major war (Vietnam), a struggling economy, and an election year in which a President was only tenuously leading in the polls and also confronting substantial opposition from elements of his own political party. In conducting such an assessment, the paper argues that over the years a specific political reading of these events has taken hold. It is the purpose of this paper to re-read the historical events and in doing so, come to a better understanding of the domestic political and geostrategic environment during Carter’s presidency, the U.S. Cold War strategy, and the soundness of the assertions that military leaders made concerning the readiness of U.S. forces to perform their missions.

In undertaking this reappraisal, the paper explains how the term “hollow army” came into use. It contends that the Carter administration left the defense strategy of his predecessors, Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, intact, a strategy that the Army supported, but it also points out that the Ford administration increased the Army’s force structure without a commensurate increase in personnel or funding, a situation that Congress abetted. Second, it argues that the defense budgets of the Carter presidency honored the American commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as well as making a sizable down payment on the Army’s modernization and readiness. What hampered the meeting of personnel requirements was the end of the draft. Young men were not inclined to enlist in the new all-volunteer force. Further, there were a number of problems within the Army regarding its ability to measure readiness as well as missteps in the development and production of new weapon systems. To its credit, the Carter administration worked with the Army to improve its recruiting program and funded new systems consistent with production capabilities.

The paper underscores that Carter grappled with these issues in a highly politically charged atmosphere. Existing U.S. Government documents, some declassified at the author’s request, confirm the Congressional Budget Office’s 1994 conclusion that the “hollow force” argument was more the result of anecdote and press sensationalism. Further, the paper maintains that the normative assumption that defense policymaking is above politics, free from political contamination, is idle fancy. Defense policy is an arena of public policy with its own cultures, routines, and constituencies. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was no stranger to military culture, pointed out, every service chief wants additional resources and always will. This was certainly the case with respect to the “hollow army” debate.

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