A Historical Perspective on “Hollow Forces”

A Historical Perspective on “Hollow Forces”

-name redactedSpecialist in Military Ground Forces

-name redactedSpecialist in Defense Policy and Budgets

February 9, 2012

Congressional Research Service

7-....

www.crs.gov

R42334

CRS Report for Congress

Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

A Historical Perspective on “Hollow Forces”

Summary

Senior Department of Defense (DOD) leaders have invoked the specter of a “hollow force” to

describe what could happen to the U.S. Armed Forces if significant cuts to the defense budget are

enacted. While some Members and staff might be familiar with the hollow force and its causes,

newer Members and staff might not have a similar understanding of the conditions that led to the

hollow force and what actions were taken to improve the condition of the U.S. Armed Forces.

After several years of rapid growth in defense budgets, measures to reduce federal budget deficits

have led to projections of a substantial decline in military spending over the next decade. As a

result of limits on discretionary spending in the Budget Control Act of 2011, DOD is considering

how to absorb a reduction of $450 billion to $500 billion in planned programs through FY2021.

Senior defense officials have said that such reductions can be managed, but they also warn that

that trade-offs among defense programs will require a reassessment of priorities, and that deeper

cuts would weaken critical capabilities. A common theme is that, unless reductions are managed

prudently, budget cuts of the magnitude required, let alone larger cuts, would risk creating a

hollow force The term hollow force refers to military forces that appear mission-ready but, upon

examination, suffer from shortages of personnel and equipment and from deficiencies in training.

Historically, there were two periods—post-Vietnam and again in the 1990s—when the term

hollow force was used to describe the U.S. Armed Forces. In the case of post-Vietnam, a variety

of socioeconomic factors as well as funding decisions played a large role in the overall decline in

readiness, particularly the decision to develop new weapon systems rather than funding other

requirements. The 1990s hollow force, however, did not suffer from the socioeconomic problems

that characterized the post-Vietnam force. Instead, the military of the early and mid-1990s was

being deployed on a frequent basis for a variety of contingency operations and was viewed by

some as being “overcommitted” relative to its size and resources. This overcommitment was

further exacerbated by recruiting and retention concerns and a lack of funds to finance new

weapon systems due to DOD decisions to emphasize readiness-related funding.

A number of current defense officials have warned about the return to a hollow force if the DOD

budget is cut significantly. Other senior officers instead suggest that in the aftermath of two wars,

a reduction in the defense budget and the force is not unprecedented and the services will be able

to make the necessary adjustments to ensure readiness. Therefore, the question arises if it is fair to

suggest that the military could become a hollow force if DOD funding was drastically reduced

and if force structure and weapon systems programs were cut. Some believe this is a

mischaracterization, as it is considered unlikely the quality of the force will decline, that pay and

benefits will be cut to the point that service in the military becomes unattractive, and public

support for the military will erode—all factors that lead to General Meyer’s description of the

post-Vietnam Army as a hollow force It is also noted that DOD has a great deal of discretion on

how its funds are spent and how units are organized, manned, equipped, and trained, which is also

a factor that contributes to readiness of the force.

As Congress will play a major role in shaping the Armed Forces in terms of size, capabilities, and

how it is equipped and trained, a nuanced understanding of how the military once became

“hollow” could provide a useful context for current and anticipated legislative action.

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A Historical Perspective on “Hollow Forces”

Contents

Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 1

Significance for Congress.......................................................................................................... 1

Background................................................................................................................................ 2

Origins of the Hollow Force................................................................................................ 2

Post-Vietnam ....................................................................................................................... 2

Other Factors Contributing to the Hollow Force of the 1970s............................................ 7

Budget Priorities as a Contributing Factor .......................................................................... 8

General Meyer and the “Hollow Army”.............................................................................. 8

Fixing the Hollow Force in the 1980s................................................................................. 9

The Hollow Force Debates of the 1990s ........................................................................... 10

Current References to Hollow Forces ..................................................................................... 14

Return to a Hollow Force? ................................................................................................ 14

Potential Issues for Congress................................................................................................... 15

Is It a Fair Comparison? .................................................................................................... 15

Figures

Figure 1. Cumulative Military Pay Raises, FY1972-FY2016, Indexed to the Consumer

Price Index.................................................................................................................................... 4

Figure 2. Trend in Procurement Outlays Compared to Trend in Total National Defense

Outlays, FY1948-FY2016 ............................................................................................................ 7

Figure 3. Trend in the Value of the Prior 10 Years of Procurement Per Active Duty Troop,

FY1975-FY2016......................................................................................................................... 18

Tables

Table 1. Active Duty Military Recruits, by Armed Forces Qualification Test Results,

FY1980-FY1984......................................................................................................................... 10

Contacts

Author Contact Information........................................................................................................... 19

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A Historical Perspective on “Hollow Forces”

Introduction

After several years of rapid growth in defense budgets, measures to reduce federal budget deficits

have led to projections of a substantial decline in military spending over the next decade. As a

result of limits on discretionary spending in the Budget Control Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-25), the

Department of Defense (DOD) is considering how to absorb a reduction of about $490 billion in

planned programs through FY2021. Senior defense officials have said that such reductions can be

managed, but they also warn that that trade-offs among defense programs will require a

strategically grounded re-assessment of priorities, and deeper cuts would weaken critical

capabilities. A common theme is, unless reductions are managed prudently, budget cuts of the

magnitude required, let alone larger cuts, would risk creating a hollow force As former Secretary

of Defense Robert Gates put it:

I am determined that we not repeat the mistakes of the past, where the budget targets were

met mostly by taking a percentage off the top of everything, the simplest and most politically

expedient approach both inside the Pentagon and outside of it. That kind of “salami-slicing”

approach preserves overhead and maintains force structure on paper, but results in a

hollowing-out of the force from a lack of proper training, maintenance and equipment—and

manpower. That’s what happened in the 1970s—a disastrous period for our military—and to

a lesser extent during the late 1990s.1

Definition: What Is a “Hollow Force”?

The term hollow force was used initially in the late 1970s and subsequently in the 1990s to characterize military

forces that appear mission-ready but, upon examination, suffer from shortages of personnel, equipment, and

maintenance or from deficiencies in training. Although the size and composition of the force appeared adequate on

paper, shortcomings identified when these forces were subjected to further scrutiny raised questions if these forces

would be able to accomplish their assigned wartime missions.

Significance for Congress

The Administration has invoked the specter of a hollow force to describe what could happen to

the U.S. Armed Forces if significant cuts to the defense budget are enacted. While some Members

and staff might be familiar with the hollow force and its causes, newer Members and staff might

not have a similar understanding of the conditions that led to the hollow force in the past and

what actions were taken to improve the situation. Given the Administration’s plan to reduce troop

strength in response to budgetary limitations and a new strategic direction, Congress—in its

oversight, authorization, and appropriations role—will likely encounter Administration officials

who claim that the U.S. military faces the prospect of once again becoming a hollow force As

Congress will play a major role in shaping the Armed Forces both in terms of size, capabilities,

and how it is equipped and trained, a nuanced understanding of how the military once became

“hollow” could provide a useful context for current and anticipated legislative action.

1

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Remarks on Defense Spending Delivered at the American Enterprise Institute,

May 24, 2011, http://www.defense.gov/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=1570.

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Background

Origins of the Hollow Force

Recent warnings about the need to avoid creating a hollow force evoke two periods in history in

which the term was commonly used to characterize the state of the U.S. military—post-Vietnam

and the 1990s. Matters of concern, though, differed considerably in those periods. At the end of

the 1970s, the gravest concerns had to do with the quality of personnel. It was widely perceived

that U.S. military conventional warfighting capabilities that had declined as the Vietnam War

came to a close did not appear to be recovering adequately, particularly as the military services

struggled to adapt to the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) instituted in 1973. Concerns about the quality

of the volunteer force in general were compounded by apparent shortfalls in filling military units

with personnel properly trained and experienced to handle their duties.

In the early 1990s, in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, U.S. military forces were regarded

as highly capable, but the worry was that steep cuts in the budget might rapidly erode hard-won

gains in personnel quality and also in the quality of training and operations. Unless pay and

benefits, training, equipment, and personnel support efforts were sustained, in this view, shortterm military readiness would suffer, forces would lose the edge they had achieved after years of

intense effort, and capabilities would be increasingly difficult to restore in the future.

By the mid-to-late 1990s, warnings about the hollow force took a couple of different turns.

Initially, a persistent complaint was that repeated commitments to contingency operations abroad

put a strain on personnel and disrupted preparations for major conflicts. New concerns about

recruiting and retention also began to emerge.2 By the end of the 1990s, the main issue had

changed to funding for major weapons programs. With defense spending limited by ongoing

battles over budget deficits, DOD elected to protect readiness-related funds for operations, but at

the expense of extending a “procurement holiday” in which relatively little money was available

to finance new weapons platforms. Investments for future capabilities, in this view, were

sacrificed to protect the appearance of high levels of readiness in the short term.

The following discussion provides a context for the current discussion of hollow forces by

offering more detailed information on budget trends and other matters that relate to hollow forces

when it was first discussed with regard to personnel matters in the 1970s, and as it has been

redefined periodically since then.

Post-Vietnam

Most military experts agree that the U.S. military was in poor shape after the end of the Vietnam

War.3 The end of the draft in 1973 initially compounded the problems of the U.S. Armed Forces.

The early years of the all-volunteer force witnessed a significant drop in education levels and test

scores among recruits, widespread recruitment scandals, and increases in bad discharges and

2

For additional information on recruiting and retention see CRS Report RL31297, Recruiting and Retention in the

Active Component Military: Are There Problems? by (name redacted).

3

William Darryl Henderson, The Hollow Army, Greenwood Press, NY, 1990, p. xi.

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peacetime desertions.4 One study noted that “because the military of this era was not viewed as an

attractive career option, none of the Services had much luck in accessing quality recruits.”5

Service in the U.S. Armed Forces during this period was not particularly attractive for a variety of

reasons.6 Military base pay increased by 61% in nominal terms (not adjusted for inflation)

between 1969 and 1973, in the run-up to the AVF.7 But salaries did not keep up with high levels

of inflation during the remainder of the 1970s and fell progressively further and further behind

the cost of living. By 1980, base pay had declined by almost 20% in real terms (adjusted for

inflation) since the end of FY1972 (see Figure 1). “Catch up” pay raises of 11.7% in 1980 and

14.3% in 1981 narrowed the gap, but were not enough to close it, in part because high levels of

inflation continued in those years.8

4

Ibid.

Robinson, Jondrow, Junor, and Oi, Avoiding a Hollow Force: An Examination of Navy Readiness, Center for Naval

Analysis, Alexandria, VA, April 1996, p. 7.

6

Information in this section, unless otherwise noted, is taken from Brigadier General Robert H. Scales, Jr., Certain

Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War, Brassley’s, Washington, DC, 1994, pp. 15-16.

7

From Henderson, cited above, and confirmed by CPI-U figures in Department of Defense, National Defense Budget

Estimates, Fiscal Year 2012, February 2011, Table 5-1, at http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2012/

FY12_Green_Book.pdf.

8

The Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) increased by 10.4% in 1979,

13.5% in 1980, and 11.1% in 1981—see Department of Defense, National Defense Budget Estimates, Fiscal Year

2012, February 2011, Table 5-1, at http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2012/FY12_Green_Book.pdf. For

additional discussion of the pay gap, see CRS Report RL33446, Military Pay and Benefits: Key Questions and

Answers, by (name redacted).

5

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Figure 1. Cumulative Military Pay Raises, FY1972-FY2016,

Indexed to the Consumer Price Index

(index, FY1972 = 100)

120

110

100

90

80

70

FY1972

FY1982

FY1992

FY2002

FY2012

Source: CRS based on military pay raises and consumer price index (CPI-W) data in Department of Defense,

National Defense Budget Estimates, Fiscal Year 2012, February 2011, at http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/

fy2012/FY12_Green_Book.pdf.

Notes: Shows the cumulative trend in pay, based on annual pay raises, relative to the consumer price index

(CPI-W). If pay raises matched the CPI, the data line would equal 100 through the whole period. A decline

reflects pay raises that did not keep up with inflation as measured by the CPI.

Post-inflation declines in take-home pay in the 1970s may also have aggravated some widely

perceived problems in the structure of pay raises initially provided to implement the AVF. The

initial AVF pay raises were disproportionately skewed toward inducing enlistment and keeping

junior service members in the military. Non-commissioned officers, with many more years of

service, were given smaller increases, and by 1973 made only about 30% more in pay than a

newly enlisted member.9 In part, the structure of pay raises reflected the premise that incentives to

remain in the force were very strong for personnel with more than 10 years or so of service time

because of the prospect of full retirement benefits after reaching 20 years of service.

Beyond that, benefits for military families, such as housing and moving allowances, also lost

value, both relative to inflation and in proportion to base pay, making it relatively more difficult

for service members with families to make ends meet at a time when a larger share of the force

was getting older and having families. By 1979, the salaries of very junior enlisted had dropped

so low that the income of an E-4 with a small family was below the U.S. government’s official

9

Brigadier General Robert H. Scales, Jr., Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War, Brassley’s, Washington,

DC, 1994, p. 15.

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poverty level.10 Also in 1979, Army commissaries reportedly accepted almost $10 million in food

stamps from service members, which drew a great deal of media and political attention.

As pay and benefits eroded over the course of the 1970s, a growing shortage of qualified recruits

was directly reflected in assessments of unit readiness. By 1979, the Army fell 15,000 short of its

recruitment goal and the Navy was short 20,000 petty officers.11 Soldier quality was also of

concern. In 1980, only 50% of those recruited had graduated from high school. Statistics for drug

use, crime, and unauthorized absences—while not as high as during the Vietnam War—were

considered unacceptable by defense officials. The Army signed up so many poor-quality soldiers

during the late 1970s that 40% of new recruits were separated from the Army for disciplinary

reasons or unsuitability prior to the completion of their first enlistment.

Throughout the force, serious shortages in qualified soldiers became a pervasive problem

affecting unit readiness ratings. By 1979, 6 of 10 Army divisions stationed in the United States

were assessed as “not combat-ready.” In Europe, one of the four U.S. divisions facing the Warsaw

Pact, presumably the highest priority units in the Army, was also rated “not combat-ready.” The

Commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, General Fredrick Kroesen, publically complained that

the U.S. Army in Europe had become “obsolescent.”12

Some describe the readiness posture in the Reserve components—which constituted the nation’s

strategic reserve—as even more dire than the Active component. Reserve forces suffered from the

same personnel shortages as did their active duty counterparts, but equipment and training

deficiencies were even more pronounced. In terms of equipment, shortages were widespread and

the Reserves often had to make do with “hand me down” equipment from the Active

component—equipment that was not always in the best of condition. Training time for Reserve

forces was also considered inadequate in relation to their assigned wartime missions.

While personnel issues were at the heart of concerns about the hollow force, shortages of critical

equipment, equipment repair, and availability of repair parts were also recurring apprehensions.

Some officials also complained about declines in operational training. It is generally difficult to

show a strict correlation between funding for operation and maintenance, however, and

commonly used measures of military readiness.13 By the late 1970s, some important readiness

measures14 showed a considerable decline. The total funding available for operation and

maintenance relative to the size of the force, however, did not decline after the Vietnam War, but

continued to grow at a very consistent rate above inflation. DOD tracking of Operation and

Maintenance funding has varied so much over the years, however, that it is not possible without

thoroughly reviewing and reorganizing DOD budget data at a very detailed level to follow trends

in consistent categories over time.15

10

Ibid.

Lieutenant Colonel Polly A. Peyer, U.S. Air Force, Hollow Force: Scare or Dare, Executive Research Project,

Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington, DC, 1994, p. 9.

12

Brigadier General Robert H. Scales, Jr., Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War, Brassley’s, Washington,

DC, 1994, p. 16.

13

For a recent discussion, see Congressional Budget Office, Linking the Readiness of the Armed Forces to DoD’s

Operation and Maintenance Spending, April 2011, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12148/04-25-Readiness.pdf.

14

Readiness measures include personnel strength, operational readiness rates of equipment, numbers and types of

equipment on hand, and performance on training exercises and evaluations.

15

The Institute for Defense Analyses has developed a “normalized” Operation and Maintenance database under a

(continued...)

11

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A lack of funding for weapons procurement was a final factor that added to perceptions of a

hollow force in the 1970s, though it was not the main issue in initial assessments of the problem.

The generation of weapons employed during the Vietnam War largely reflected technology

developed in the 1950s that was widely seen as obsolete by the end of the war. A new generation

of weapons was under development, ranging from the M-1 tank and the Apache attack helicopter

to the F-15 fighter and Aegis radar-equipped cruisers and destroyers. By the end of the 1970s,

many of these new systems had completed development and were ready to be procured, but

budgets fell far short of the levels needed to achieve production rates that would replace aging

equipment, even for a substantially smaller force.

For the military services, the lack of funding for more modern weapons became a steadily more

important concern. In 1978, the service chiefs jointly urged a substantial increase in the defense

budget, in large part to finance planned weapons programs. Subsequently, the growth in defense

spending that began in the late 1970s and that accelerated in the early 1980s was devoted largely

to weapons acquisition. As Figure 2 shows, procurement funding from the 1950s through the

1990s varied disproportionately compared to overall budget trends. When budgets increased,

procurement funding climbed more steeply. When budgets declined, procurement funding fell

more precipitously. A concern for the future expressed by some is that procurement and research,

development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) accounts may once again be reduced

disproportionately as funding declines.

(...continued)

contract with the DOD Office of Cost Analysis and Program Evaluation (CAPE), formerly the Office of Program

Analysis and Evaluation. The database tracks O&M funding trends in consisted categories over time. The database is

not available to other agencies, however, but is regularly used inside the Defense Department to assess funding.

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Figure 2. Trend in Procurement Outlays Compared to

Trend in Total National Defense Outlays, FY1948-FY2016

(amounts in billions of constant FY2012 $)

800

Total DOD FY2012$ in Billons

700

140

600

120

500

100

400

80

300

200

60

Total DOD Outlays

Procurement Outlays

40

100

0

1948

Procurement FY2012 $ in Billions

160

20

0

1958

1968

1978

1988

1998

2008

Fiscal Year

Source: CRS based on data in Department of Defense, National Defense Budget Estimates, Fiscal Year 2012,

February 2011, at http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2012/FY12_Green_Book.pdf.

Notes: National defense total on left-hand scale, procurement on right-hand scale. Includes war-related funding.

Other Factors Contributing to the Hollow Force of the 1970s16

The difficulties that the services encountered in managing the transition to the All-Volunteer

Force were the initial focus of the hollow force argument, but they were certainly not the sole

concern. A 1996 study by the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) suggests seven possible causes of

the post-Vietnam hollow force:

•

low public support for the military;

•

pressure to cut defense spending;

•

difficulties in maintaining an all-volunteer force (i.e., failure to attract and retain

high-quality recruits);

16

Robinson, Jondrow, Junor, and Oi, Avoiding a Hollow Force: An Examination of Navy Readiness, Center for Naval

Analysis, Alexandria, VA, April 1996, p. 7.

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•

declining pay;

•

poor morale;

•

delays in fielding modern armaments and equipment; and

•

inadequate attention to maintenance of existing equipment.

Budget Priorities as a Contributing Factor

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) suggested that other factors—notably overall priorities

within the defense budget—also contributed to the hollow force:

Between 1969 and 1975, public disillusionment with the nation’s role in Vietnam

encouraged rapid reductions in defense spending. Expenditures on national defense, adjusted

for inflation, fell by 31 percent. Limited budgets, together with rising oil prices and increased

personnel costs resulting from the elimination of the draft, meant that the acquisition of

modern weapons by the military, which had been delayed by the Vietnam War, was delayed

still further. Thus, when the defense budget did start to rise slowly between 1976 and 1981,

DOD emphasized the procurement of new weapon systems. In the eyes of some critics, the

decision to emphasize modernization over readiness was an error in judgment that left

existing units unable to operate. Yet the underlying problem may have been an imbalance

between defense resources and national security commitments that made it impossible for

DOD to buy both readiness and modernization.17

CBO’s assessment suggests, aside from the aforementioned social conditions, that leadership

decisions on procurement of new weapons versus readiness also played a role in the creation of

the hollow force. Budget figures bear this out, at least to a degree. Between FY1976 and FY1981,

O&M funding increased by 30% after adjusting for inflation, while procurement plus R&D

funding grew by 43%.

General Meyer and the “Hollow Army”

General Edward C. Meyer, Chief of Staff of the Army (1979-1983), is credited with introducing

the term “hollow Army” during a May 29, 1980, House Armed Services Committee hearing.

General Meyer noted during this hearing that

Right now, as I have said before, we have a hollow Army. Our forward-deployed forces are

at full strength in Europe, in Panama, and in Korea. Our tactical forces in the United States

are some 17,000 under strength, Therefore, anywhere you go in the United States, except for

the 82d Airborne Division, which is also filled up, you will find companies and platoons

which have been zeroed out.18

While many units were indeed “zeroed out,”19 it should be noted that defense officials also had

the option to reduce the number of Army divisions and keep them at 100% strength. In this

17

Congressional Budget Office, Trends in Selected Indicators of Military Readiness,1980 Through 1993, March 1994,

pp. 3-4.

18

National Defense Funding Levels for Fiscal Year 1981, Hearing Before the Investigations Subcommittee of the

Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 96th Congress, May 29, 1980, p. 18.

19

“Zeroed Out” refers to decisions taken to not fully man units at their authorized strength but keeping the unit “on the

books” in hopes that in the future when manpower became available, these units could be returned to their full

(continued...)

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regard, some suggest that DOD and the Army itself also bear a degree of culpability in creating

General Meyer’s hollow divisions.

One explanation as to why the Army chose to maintain its divisions and associated headquarters

and supporting units but reduce their strength was that the Army had a strategic requirement to

provide adequate numbers of units to address potential contingencies. The Army maintained two

Corps and a number of divisions in Europe to counter the Warsaw Pact, forces in Korea to

counter potential North Korean aggression, and forces in Panama to ensure the sovereignty of the

Panama Canal. It also was required to address potential Arab-Israeli and Iranian security

challenges. War plans of this era also reinforced the need for specific numbers and types of

formations, as they tended to focus more on unit-to-unit ratios to achieve victory as opposed to

apportioning capabilities of the services against potential threat scenarios.

According to CBO, “soon after his [General Meyer’s] testimony, the term hollow force was being

widely used to characterize not only the shortages of experienced personnel but also the shortages

of training, weapons, and equipment that undermined military readiness during the mid and late

1970s.”20 Subsequently, a number of anecdotal press accounts from 1980 served to focus greater

attention on the issue of hollow forces. In one case, the commander of the USS Canisteo, a fleet

oiler, was unable to deploy because of a lack of experienced personnel in the engine room, and a

U.S. Air Force fighter wing failed a mobilization test because only 23 of the 66 assigned F-15

fighters were mission capable.21

Fixing the Hollow Force in the 1980s

Four basic factors have been credited with the reversal of the Army’s decline in the 1980s:

congressional support for higher military spending, training reorganization, doctrinal emphasis,

and improved personnel policies.22 In 1980 and 1981, Congress began what was described as a

“rapid infusion of monies” into the services. As noted earlier, servicemember salaries were

increased by 25% between 1981 and 1982, which, even if eroded by inflation, gave personnel a

strong reason to think that things were changing. Other, more targeted improvements in

compensation—such as the Montgomery G.I. Bill (P.L. 98-525)—reinforced the message, as did

overall changes in the quality of military combat planning, training, and weapons investments.

Research had shown, for example, that money for college was the primary reason for enlisting

among the most high-scoring soldiers on Armed Forces intelligence tests.23 In the 1980s,

Congress reinstated the GI Bill and initiated college funds, which helped close the personnel

(...continued)

authorized strength. This permitted the Army to keep 16 Active Duty divisions to allocate against strategic

requirements.

20

Congressional Budget Office, Trends in Selected Indicators of Military Readiness,1980 Through 1993, March 1994,

p. 2.

21

Ibid., p. 3.

22

Information in this section is taken from Brigadier General Robert H. Scales, Jr., Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in

the Gulf War, Brassley’s, Washington, DC, 1994, pp. 17-18 and Lieutenant Colonel Polly A. Peyer, U.S. Air Force,

Hollow Force: Scare or Dare, Executive Research Project, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington, DC,

1994, pp. 11-12.

23

Brigadier General Robert H. Scales, Jr., Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War, Brassley’s, Washington,

DC, 1994, p. 17.

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quality gap. Army Major General Maxwell Thurman was given the task of reforming Army

recruiting practices and how the Army trained. During this period, the Army developed and

institutionalized Air Land Battle Doctrine, which helped to focus training and the procurement of

new weapons systems and, as a by-product, led to a more efficient use of resources. Finally, the

Army focused on enhancing unit cohesion, and the practice of stripping personnel from some

units to fill out deploying units was diminished. The other services embarked on similar efforts to

improve personnel quality, training, and readiness during the decade of the 1980s.

Fully assessing the results of all of these initiatives is far beyond the scope of this short report—

effects would not likely be felt for several years, readiness measures are often problematic, and

the value of large investments in new weapons programs and other equipment is often difficult to

assess in any case. To the extent concerns about the hollow force at the end of the 1970s had to do

with the quality of enlistments, however, revisions in military pay and benefits appear to have

entailed dramatic improvements over a very short period of time. Table 1, drawn from a May

1984 DOD report that compiled measures of improvements in U.S. warfighting capabilities

between 1980 and 1984, shows substantial progress in recruit quality as measured by

performance on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which measures cognitive ability. The

percentage of enlisted recruits in the top two AFQT categories improved from below the national

average to considerably above it. Perhaps most importantly, the proportion of recruits in the

lowest permissible qualification category, Category IV, declined from 31% in FY1980 to 8% by

FY1983.

Table 1. Active Duty Military Recruits, by

Armed Forces Qualification Test Results, FY1980-FY1984

(percentage in each category)

Active Duty Enlisted Recruits

AFQT

Category

Baseline %

1980 Youth

Population

FY1980

FY1981

FY1982

FY1983

FY1984

(est).

1

4

3

3

3

4

4

II

33

24

31

34

37

38

III

32

42

49

50

50

50

IV

24

31

18

13

8

8

V

7

0

0

0

0

0

Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Improvements in U.S. Warfighting Capability FY1980-84, May 1984.

The Hollow Force Debates of the 1990s

The rehabilitated U.S. military demonstrated that it was no longer a hollow force by virtue of its

performance in the 1991 Gulf War. But even as U.S. forces were beginning to deploy to the

Persian Gulf in the fall of 1990, Congress approved a new budget agreement that reflected plans

for a substantial decline in defense spending over the next three to five years, continuing cuts that

began in the FY1986 budget. Meanwhile, General Colin Powell, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,

was beginning to lay out the premises of the “Base Force,” a revised defense plan that entailed

substantial cuts in the size of the force based largely on the premise that the Soviet threat had

diminished and that strategic warning of a renewal of the threat would extend for some years.

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The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the desire for a “peace dividend” subsequently

led to still further budget reductions. In 1993, the incoming Clinton Administration announced

plans to trim $60 billion over the five years through FY1997 from the outgoing Administration’s

defense plan, with most of the savings due to a reduction in active duty end-strength from about

1.6 million planned for the Base Force to about 1.4 million. DOD’s 1993 “Bottom-Up Review”

provided a new basis for force planning with a requirement that forces be prepared to prevail in

two overlapping “Major Regional Contingencies,” each on the model of Operation Desert Storm.

Critics of the Bottom-Up Review argued both that planned force levels were not adequate to carry

out the strategy and that projected budgets were not sufficient to sustain planned force levels. A

central theme in the budget debate—articulated very forcefully by Senator McCain, among

others—was that earlier budget cuts had already led to a decline in military readiness and that

additional reductions would resurrect the hollow force of the 1970s. In May 1993, Senator

McCain asked the service chiefs to respond to a series of questions about the readiness status of

their services, and he summarized his analysis of their responses in a series of speeches on the

Senate floor beginning on June 30. The speeches, along with the service chief’s responses to

Senator McCain, were later collected in a report entitled Going Hollow: The Warnings of Our

Chiefs of Staff.24

In his assessment of the chiefs’ views, Senator McCain did not argue that readiness had yet

declined to levels of the late 1970s, and he found no one factor that was clearly undermining

readiness across all of the services. Rather, he cited concerns about trends in several areas,

including, among other matters,

•

preserving a high operational tempo at the expense of equipment overhauls and

depot maintenance, keeping personnel deployed for excessive periods, and

strains on major combat equipment;

•

increasing depot maintenance backlogs;

•

underfunding of personnel pay and benefits, inadequate end-strength, and

excessive turbulence in personnel deployments;

•

underfunding of weapons modernization, including upgrades of current systems

and purchases of munitions; and

•

funding peacekeeping and humanitarian operations at the expense of readiness.

Senator McCain also emphasized the importance of measuring readiness in terms of real-world

requirements. By some standards, he pointed out, even the performance of U.S. forces in the

Persian Gulf War raised concerns, particularly about the ability to respond rapidly enough to an

unanticipated challenge—

Time and again, we have learned that our readiness measures are unrealistic or fail to

anticipate real-world demands of … The Gulf War, for example, demonstrated all of these

problems. In spite of the highest readiness funding in our history, we were not ready to fight

when we deployed. We took months to adjust the organization, training, and support

structures of our active combat forces, we experienced major problems with some aspects of

the call up and training of our reserves, and we literally had to make thousands of

modifications to our combat equipment, munitions, support equipment, and battle

24

Senator John McCain, “Going Hollow: The Warnings of Our Chiefs of Staff,” July 1993.

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management and communications systems. Without the months Saddam Hussein gave us,

these readiness problems might well have cost us thousands of lives. Few future opponents

are likely to give us the most precious gift of modern war: time.25

Other senior Members of Congress echoed some of Senator McCain’s concerns. As early as

March 1993, Representative John Murtha, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations

Subcommittee, warned that the cost of overseas operations would weaken the force. “If President

Clinton does not back off the nation’s costly overseas deployments,” he said, “and find some

hardware program to cut, the U.S. military will become a ‘hollow force’ beginning in FY 95.”26

Members of the House Armed Services Committee also became concerned that the Army was

using funds needed to sustain readiness instead to finance deployments, and the committee

established two panels to further investigate the hollow force issue.27

In response to concerns about readiness, in June 1993, then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin

established a readiness task force, chaired by General Meyer, to review the readiness status of

forces and to recommend measures to help sustain readiness. The task force, operating under the

auspices of the Defense Science Board, issued an interim report in February 199428 and a final

report in June.29 The task force found that the current readiness of the force was “acceptable in

most measurable areas,” but it also proposed measures to avoid what it characterized as

“legitimate concerns” that “continuing force reductions, strategy changes, and budget reductions

could cause serious readiness degradations.”30 Among the measures the task force recommended

were

•

“Measurement systems to improve tracking of the effect of funding allocations

on readiness.” The task force noted, for example, that unit commanders had the

flexibility to allocate operation and maintenance funds between expenditures that

might be less important for short-term readiness, such as facility maintenance,

and expenditures more directly related to readiness, such as training days. The

panel urged more detailed and timely tracking of directly readiness-related

funding.

•

Development of a system for funding contingency operations that “does not

divert, delay or disrupt the flow of funds needed to maintain readiness of forces

not engaged in such operations.”

•

“Increased emphasis on Joint and Combined readiness and requirements,

including development of joint mission essential task lists.”

25

“Going Hollow,” Tab A (the report is not paginated; the quoted passage is on the next to last page of the initial

section of the report).

26

“Murtha Sees Hollow Military Approaching,” Defense Daily, Vol. 178, No. 51, March 18, 1993.

27

See Lieutenant Colonel Polly A. Peyer, U.S. Air Force, Hollow Force: Scare or Dare, Executive Research Project,

Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington, DC, 1994, pp. 13-14.

28

General Edward C. “Shy” Meyer, Chairman, Defense Science Board Task Force on Readiness, “Defense Science

Board Task Force on Readiness: Interim Report,” February, 1994.

29

General Edward C. “Shy” Meyer, Chairman, Defense Science Board Task Force on Readiness, “Defense Science

Board Task Force on Readiness: Final Report,” June, 1994, at http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=

ADA286412&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf.

30

See Final Report, p. i and p. 2.

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Through the rest of the Clinton Administration, budget trends—and particularly annual

adjustments in budgets—reflected a considerable degree of sensitivity about readiness. Early in

the Administration, budget projections showed operation and maintenance accounts leveling off,

after adjusting for inflation, in the later years of Future Years Defense Plans (FYDPs).31 Because

operating costs have perennially grown at a fairly rapid pace above inflation, however, under a

flat budget, funding would fall increasingly short of levels required to sustain readiness. A case

can also be made that projections of O&M funding inherited from the previous Administration

may have fallen short of levels needed to meet readiness goals, which compounded potential

insufficiencies.32

DOD’s response was to add funds to O&M accounts as each annual budget was adjusted before

being sent to Congress. The plus ups in O&M accounts, in turn, came mainly at the expense of

weapons procurement, and the subsequent cuts in planned procurement amounts soon became a

major issue. For several years, DOD set a target of $60 billion a year for procurement, which was

pushed further and further into the future—procurement funding was frozen at just under $45

billion in each year from FY1994 to FY1998. In effect, growing O&M costs led DOD to extend

what was characterized as a “procurement holiday” year by year through most of the decade.

Through the 1990s, along with the “procurement holiday,” the effect of repeated deployments of

forces in military operations abroad became a focus of concerns about readiness. The U.S.

military intervention in Haiti in 1994, military operations in Bosnia and Kosovo from 1995

through 1998, and the maintenance of no-fly zones in Iraq from 1993 on, along with a number of

humanitarian operations, were seen as a strain on the force, particularly because even relatively

small, long-duration operations required a relatively large rotation base to sustain deployments. In

addition, because—as a matter of long-standing policy—many Army units were not fully manned

in peacetime, contingency operations created a disproportionate amount of turbulence in the

force, as personnel were reassigned to fill out deploying units.33

By the late 1990s, the Army was reportedly being mobilized for contingency operations 15 times

as frequently as in the past decade.34 When President George W. Bush took office, Army

leadership suggested that its smaller force could not sustain these deployments indefinitely.35

Many service leaders were especially worried about the effect of repeated deployments on

retention.

In the end, however, concerns about readiness that were widely expressed at the beginning of the

1990s did not materialize. Although recruitment and retention of quality personnel did not meet

31

The Defense Department prepares detailed projections of the budget for five or six years ahead. A six-year plan is

prepared every other year and then adjusted in the following year for the remaining five years of the planning period.

32

For a comparison of George H.W. Bush Administration and Clinton Administration defense plans, see CRS Report

95-20F, A Comparison of Clinton Administration and Bush Administration Long-Term Defense Budget Plans for

FY1994-99, by (name redacted), December 20, 1994, 6 pp. (The report is not currently available on the CRS website,

but congressional offices may request a copy from the author or through the CRS request system.)

33

United States General Accounting Office (GAO), “Military Readiness: Data and Trends for April 1995 to March

1996,” GAO/NSIAD-96-194, August 1996.

34

Information in this section, unless otherwise noted, is taken from James Fallows, “The Hollow Army,” The Atlantic

Monthly, March 2004.

35

Robinson, Jondrow, Junor, and Oi, Avoiding a Hollow Force: An Examination of Navy Readiness, Center for Naval

Analysis, Alexandria, VA, April 1996, p. 2.

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service targets,36 the services were able to overcome these shortfalls, and O&M funding levels

remained consistent with long-term trends, though at the expense of weapons procurement. And

once budget deficits declined, increases in military pay and benefits became a high priority. A

significant Clinton Administration initiative was to increase housing allowances substantially,

which boosted take-home pay dollar-for-dollar since this benefit was not taxed. Ongoing

operations abroad continued to put some strains on the force, though less so over time as

deployments to the Balkans were regularized and assigned increasingly to reserve units.

The use of the term hollow force to describe the effects of the defense budget decline of the 1990s

does not appear apt, and certainly not if it is taken to reflect a parallel with the personnel and

other readiness-related shortfalls of the 1970s. Instead, the decline in budgets in the 1990s was

reflected mainly in amounts available for weapons modernization. Procurement declined to a low

point of about half the peak in the mid-1980s and began to turn up substantially only when

budgets began to climb in FY1998 and accelerated after FY2000.

Current References to Hollow Forces

Return to a Hollow Force?

As the U.S. government debates significant defense budget cuts as a means of reducing the

nation’s deficit and a new post Iraq and Afghanistan strategic shift to the Asia-Pacific region,

some officials are invoking the specter of a new hollow force. On the occasion of taking the oath

of office for Secretary of Defense on July 1, 2011, Leon Panetta noted:

Even as the United States addresses fiscal challenges at home, there will be no hollow force

on my watch. That will require us all to be disciplined in how we manage taxpayer

resources.37

During an October 27, 2011, hearing before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee

on Readiness, a number of references to an impending hollow force were made by senior DOD

leadership:38

•

General Peter W. Chiarelli, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army: In a press report

on the hearing, General Chiarelli was quoted as saying “Asked the

representatives to remember that the services have fought a 10-year war, with an

all-volunteer force … that force is amazingly resilient, but at the same time, it is

strained,” he said. “Its equipment is strained, soldiers are strained, families are

strained. But they’ve been absolutely amazing over these 10 years at war.”

Chiarelli said he understands budget cuts and corresponding force reductions

have to be made. “However, we must make them responsibly so that we do not

end up with either a hollowed out force … or an unbalanced force.”

36

For information on recruiting and retention shortfalls see CRS Report RL31297, Recruiting and Retention in the

Active Component Military: Are There Problems? by (name redacted).

37

Jim Garamone, “Panetta Pledges ‘No Hollow Force’ on His Watch,” American Forces Press Service, July 1, 2011.

38

Jim Garamone, “Vice Chiefs Detail Consequences of Budget Cuts,” American Forces Press Service, October 27,

2011.

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•

General Joseph Dunford, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps: In a

press report on the hearing, General Dunford was quoted as saying, “As Defense

Secretary [Leon] Panetta refines the strategy, the commandant is going to use

what we learned during the force-structure review effort to make

recommendations.... With regard to balance, we don’t want to make cuts in a

manner that would create a hollow force.”

It has been suggested that the use of a hollow force has instead “become a convenient turn of

phrase that tends to cut off all rational debate about national defense priorities.”39 Some senior

military officers reportedly dispute the notion of a return to a hollow force:

•

Marine Corps Lieutenant General Richard Mills, recently returned from

commanding forces in Afghanistan. “‘I know we are going to look at some

reduction in numbers. I’ve gone through this a couple of times in my career. Each

time the military has had to tighten its belt, we continued to function very well.’

Mills said he is not overly concerned that the Marine Corps will not have

adequate resources to do its job. ‘I say that from experience,’ said Mills. ‘I can

remember times when it was tough to get fuel for vehicles to go to the field to

train, so you walked; when it was tough to get ammunition to shoot for training,

but you made do.’”40

•

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey reportedly

“told a 2011 gathering of defense contractors that he expects some budget pains,

but he is still certain that the Army will have proper resources to be dominant in

the future, I’ve been trying to convince people to stop wringing their hands at this

point about money. Inside the Beltway, contractors and lawmakers are fretting

about the fate of the Abrams tank or the Bradley vehicle production lines. But

rather than obsess over line items in the budget, Army leaders should start

thinking about how to reshape the Army for post-Iraq and Afghanistan world.”41

Potential Issues for Congress

Is It a Fair Comparison?

To ask whether projected budget trends are likely to lead to anything comparable to the hollow

force of the 1970s—or, alternatively, the “procurement holiday” of the 1990s—is to raise those

eras as a cautionary note about budget cuts. But is it an appropriate comparison?

As previously noted, as many as seven possible causes have been cited for the hollow force of the

late 1970s. If these seven causes are examined for contemporary relevance, five of the seven

causes would be non-applicable. Most analysts would likely agree public support for the military

is at a high point. For example, a May 2010 national telephone survey conducted by Rasmussen

Reports, LLC found that 74% of Americans surveyed had a favorable opinion of the U.S.

39

Sandra I. Erwin, “Cries of “Hollow Military” Stifle Rational Debate on Future Spending,” National Defense, June

2011.

40

Ibid.

41

Ibid.

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military.42 In terms of recruiting and retention, CRS Report RL32965, Recruiting and Retention:

An Overview of FY2009 and FY2010 Results for Active and Reserve Component Enlisted

Personnel, notes in an overview of FY2010 results:

All the Active Components achieved their recruit quantity goals while recruit quality

generally increased over the previous year, in some cases markedly. Virtually all new

recruits had high school diplomas, and nearly three-quarters scored above average on the

Armed Forces Qualification Test. Retention remained strong for all the services, with the

Army and Navy exceeding their goals by substantial margins. The Air Force missed its goal

for first term ("Zone A”) personnel by 7%, and was slightly short of its goal for career

("Zone C”) personnel. All of the Reserve Components except the Army National Guard met

or exceeded their recruit quantity goals. The National Guard shortfall was due to an

intentional effort to cut back recruiting in order to lower its strength, which had gone beyond

its authorized end-strength. Recruit quality continued to improve for nearly all the Reserve

Components. All of the Reserve Components finished the year under their attrition ceilings,

and almost all showed lower attrition (better retention) than in FY2009.43

It can be argued that a smaller military and a smaller budget could instead result in the military

being even more selective in terms of recruiting and retaining service members, thereby

improving the overall quality of the force.

The issue of declining pay also does not appear to be a relevant factor in the potential return to a

hollow force. CRS Report RL33446, Military Pay and Benefits: Key Questions and Answers,

notes that

In the nearly 10 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, basic pay has

increased nominally by nearly 35% (figure not adjusted for inflation). This figure does not

include other increases in allowances, bonuses, or incentives. The cumulative effect is that

most analysts now agree that the average annual cost per servicemember exceeds $100,000.44

When increased housing allowances, subsistence allowances, and enlistment and reenlistment

bonuses are added, total cash take-home pay has increased even more. And when increases in

retirement benefits, due to Tricare for Life medical benefits and concurrent receipt of military

retired pay and veterans disability benefits, are considered, military compensation has grown by

more than 55% above inflation since FY1998. There have recently been calls to reduce military

compensation as a part of deficit reduction measures. Congress might want to consider carefully

how such changes would affect the quality of the force on the assumption that the economy

recovers, and private employment prospects for potential military-age recruits improve, making

the military a less attractive employment option.

Reports suggest that the morale of U.S. troops is declining to some degree, based on surveys

conducted in the summer of 2010.45 This trend is largely attributed to repeated deployments to

combat zones, which have significantly exacerbated stress and anxiety.46 It might be expected that

42

Rasmussen Reports, “74% Have Favorable Opinion of the U.S. Military,” May 29, 2010.

CRS Report RL32965, Recruiting and Retention: An Overview of FY2009 and FY2010 Results for Active and

Reserve Component Enlisted Personnel, by (name redacted).

44

CRS Report RL33446, Military Pay and Benefits: Key Questions and Answers, by (name redacted).

45

Anna Mulrine, “Study of U.S. Troops in Wartime: Morale Droops and Acute Stress Rises,” Christian Science

Monitor, May 19, 2011.

46

Ibid.

43

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as large-scale deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are phased out, the underlying factors that

contribute to lowered morale could improve, making reported poor morale less of a consideration.

Congress has placed a great deal of emphasis on a funding reset for the services, which is

intended to repair equipment that has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan and extend its overall

useful life. While the services have suggested that future budget cuts might endanger reset, it

should be noted that the services have a great deal of discretion on how operation and

maintenance (O&M) funds are allocated and therefore have great influence on how the reset of

equipment is conducted. Moreover, the August 2011 deficit agreement, reflected in the Budget

Control Act of 2011, P.L. 112-25, does not establish limits on funding for Overseas Contingency

Operations, which has been the primary source of reset expenditures.

Some have also warned that large-scale budget cuts would mean that the United States would

have to abandon modernization and thereby put the United States at a military disadvantage. One

recent report by the Stimson Center suggests, however, that over the past decade, the military

services took advantage of increased procurement funding to modernize their forces more

substantially than DOD officials have sometimes implied.47 The Army was credited with

upgrading both M-1 Abrams and M-2 Bradley fleets to the most state-of-the-art versions, as well

as upgrading the majority of its support vehicles and its small arms inventory. The Air Force

fielded next-generation systems such as the F-22 fighter and C-17 transport, and also acquired

new capabilities, including a variety of multi-role, unmanned aircraft. The Navy used its

procurement funds to advance its shipbuilding plans, which were recognized as underfunded, as

well as to modernize its aircraft fleet. Even if modernization funds become more limited in future

defense budgets, overall budget data suggest the services would enter this period after having

invested in modernized forces about as substantially as in the weapons-driven buildup of the

1980s. CRS has calculated that when recent amounts for weapons modernization are compared to

amounts in the mid-1980s, the total inflation-adjusted dollar value of relatively modern

equipment available to forces today (i.e., equipment purchased within the past 10 years) appears

relatively robust. Figure 3 shows the prior 10 years of investments per active duty troop from

FY1975 to FY2016.

47

Information in this section is taken from (name redacted), “What We Bought: Defense Procurement from FY01 to

FY10,” The Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC, October 2011.

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Figure 3. Trend in the Value of the Prior 10 Years of Procurement

Per Active Duty Troop, FY1975-FY2016

(thousands of constant FY2012 $)

1,000

Overseas Contingencies

Procurement

Base Budget Procurement

900

FY2012 $ per Troop (000s)

800

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

0

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

Fiscal Year

Source: CRS based on DOD data.

Notes: The amount in each year shows the total of the prior 10 years of procurement funding divided by active

duty end-strength in each budget year. The figure is intended to measure the trend in the amount of relatively

modern equipment available to military forces.

Given these conditions, it can be argued that the use of the term hollow force is inappropriate

under present circumstances. Most of the conditions that existed in the 1970s do not exist today. It

also is unlikely that even in the case of drastically reduced military funding and a smaller

military, recruit quality would decline, pay and benefits would be drastically cut, or U.S. public

support for the military would significantly decline.

In this context, perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be to the mid-1990s, when defense

officials were concerned about “over-extending a smaller but capable military.” But overextension might also prove to be relatively limited. Many defense and foreign policy experts

believe that in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States will be less inclined to deploy

military forces in great numbers to deal with threats, relying instead on other instruments of U.S.

national power to address these situations. Some believe that recent limited U.S. involvement in

NATO’s operations against Libya and the decision to send 100 U.S. military personnel to Uganda

to support regional efforts against the Lord’s Resistance Army might be the future model for more

measured U.S. military responses to security challenges. Others note that the United States has

yet to correctly predict future security challenges and it would be imprudent to rule out the

possibility of having to deploy large numbers of U.S. forces in the future for an extended duration

to respond to a crisis or conflict.

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An informed discussion may be best served by military leaders avoiding reference to a hollow

force and adopting a more measured approach to inform Congress and other decision makers

about their concerns for the future state of the U.S. military. The current and, quite likely, the

expected future cultural and economic conditions facing the U.S. military appear to bear little

resemblance to those of the hollow force of the post-Vietnam era. While significant additional

cuts to the U.S. defense budget could undoubtedly have a major impact on force structure and

weapons programs, senior military leadership plays a significant role in determining how

resources are allocated, and avoiding a return to the genuinely hollow forces of the post-Vietnam

era may be expected to remain an overarching priority.

Author Contact Information

(name redacted)

Specialist in Military Ground Forces

[redacted]@crs.loc.gov, 7-....

Congressional Research Service

(name redacted)

Specialist in Defense Policy and Budgets

[redacted]@crs.loc.gov, 7-....

19

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