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This file is copyright of Jens Schriver (c)
It originates from the Evil House of Cheat
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Essay Name       : 1253.txt
Uploader         :
Email Address    :
Language         : English
Subject          : Politics
Title            : Action Plan on Military Spending
Grade            : B+
School System    : Canadian University
Country          : Canada
Author Comments  : It was a long paper to write
Teacher Comments : More personal views needed to be expressed
Date             : October 30, 1996
Site found at    : A link from another site
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Military Spending Working Group
ACTION PLAN ON MILITARY SPENDING

This Action Plan outlines a coordinated, complementary program of work
in pursuit of our shared goal:

To shift decisively the center of public debate toward more substantial
reductions in military spending and reorient current policy towards more
effective and less costly common security investments.

Over the next two years expanded activities will be required in seven
inter-related fields:

1 - Analysis
2 - Public Outreach
3 - Media
4 - Global Initiative

All seven components of our campaign stress both the "vertical"
mobilization of leaders and membership, and the "horizontal"
mobilization of a widening circle of constituencies.

Our concept of operation on military spending envisions sequential
mobilization of the peace and security community, other organized
communities, and the general public. We will build on the reciprocal
relationship between leaders and membership -- with opinion leaders in
each sequentially mobilized community urging action, and the
mobilization of their membership base encouraging leaders to take more
visible stands.

Our initial mobilization has focused on the traditional peace and
security community, including both opinion leaders and membership
organizations. The initial focus of this mobilization will not primarily
seek to immediately impact the decision-making process.

Our ongoing focus will be to mobilize other constituencies most
seriously concerned about current budgetary priorities, including the
organized religious community and environmental and other domestic
organizations, including labor unions.

These constituencies will be in turn be mobilized to reach out to the
attentive and general public, which will have the greatest potential to
impact the decision-making process.

This sequential mobilization process will require significant, and
focused, public opinion assessments. This will encompass a variety of
techniques, including evaluating existing survey data, conducting
"piggy-back" and dedicated national surveys, and conducting focus
groups. The intent is not so much to demonstrate that the general public
and opinion leaders support reduced military spending (which is the
case) but rather to identify and refine themes and messages which
resonate with public concerns and will increase the salience and level
of mobilization on the military spending issue within the context of the
broader debate over national priorities.

These assessments will assist in developing more tightly focused
strategies and in assigning priorities within each of the campaign
components. Existing survey materials provide some guidance (e.g.,
support for reduced military spending is strongest when posed in the
context of other national priorities). But additional efforts in this
field are needed, both to clarify top-level thematic priorities (e.g.,
"waste" versus "perceived threats", etc) that could inform analytical
and outreach priorities, as well as to identify specific word-choices
(e.g., "defense budget" versus "military spending") that will be
important for outreach and media message development.


TIME LINE

The Campaign naturally proceeds in four phases:

1. Coordinate Plan. The initial phase, from 1994 to 1995 will conduct
planning sessions with participating organizations in the Military
Spending Working Group. The group will develop integrated long-term
strategies and coordinate plans for activities in each of the campaign
components - Analysis, Outreach, Media, Information Systems,
Coordination, Funding. During this phase organizations will secure
funding. Short-term activities on immediate budget issues will also
continue.

2. Begin Implementation. The second phase, from 1995 through mid-1997,
will aim to develop and expand analysis and information availability for
new national security perspectives and substantial reductions in
military spending, both in aggregate and on individual programs. This
will counter-balance those who want increased spending, and restore the
center of the debate to one of increases versus reductions. Activities
will increase media coverage, expand information distribution, develop
interaction with grassroots, divide labor among groups, recruit
Congressional allies, achieve substantial reductions in annual military
spending (tens of billions of dollars) and encourage even greater
reductions. The Military Spending Working Group is developing resources
that will attempt to elevate our issues and perspectives in the debates
during the congressional elections in 1996. We aim to target these
resources for use by government, the media, and key grassroots
constituencies that work with our respective organizations.

3. Reach Mid-Term Goal. The third phase will extend from mid-1997
through the end of the decade. The intent is to exploit the initial work
to achieve further major reductions in military spending. Without
intensification of effort in this third phase, the country would
certainly witness much worse (higher) levels of expenditures than would
otherwise be the case. Current plans call for an upswing in procurement
of next generation weapons during this period to replace those purchased
in large numbers in the 1980s. The defense modernization "bow wave" will
start in FY 1998, when a substantial number of weapons systems are
supposed to enter low level production, shifting from the R&D to
procurement budgets. If we have learned nothing else over the last
decade, we have learned that weapons buildups help drive defense budget
buildups and the best time to kill a modernization plan is before
substantial resources have been invested. These lessons support
attempting to nip questionable parts of the modernization plan in the
bud, rather than waiting for big increases in the modernization budget
to materialize.

4. Reach Long-Term Goal. A fourth phase would begin around the turn of
the millennium, by which time fundamentally new international security
structures could conceivably be in place. Although these are not
currently necessary for the defense of the United States, they may be
necessary to create the political environment among the public required
to reduce military spending drastically. If these new structures prove
successful in preventing or quickly dealing with challenges to
international security, the resulting sense of thoroughgoing security
and stability should make realistic consideration of deep cuts in
military spending - up to a couple of hundred billion dollars a year -
feasible.

The community has already embarked on the first phase, though
substantially greater resources are needed immediately. Strategies and
plans must be completed soon if the potential opportunities of the
second phase are to be fully realized.

The first step was taken in July 1994, with the initiation of the
Military Spending Working Group, which over time has developed into a
weekly meeting of representatives of over a dozen national security
organizations. In the course of two dozen subsequent meetings, this core
grouping has created a working process that shares information and
ideas, develops joint products, and cooperates on activities and
planning more systematically than before. The Group has identified in
this document the elements required for a coordinated campaign,
organizations that have different expertise in each component, and some
new elements to be pursued. The next step is to complete the process of
pulling together these initial outlines and initiatives into an
integrated campaign.

The plan will ultimately include realistic strategies for achieving
change that include new approaches to avoid past pitfalls and
unremunerative efforts. It will obtain agreement on objectives,
priorities, target audiences, communications, tactics, and the division
of responsibilities. The campaign will require, among other things:

    a plan for impacting the elite debate - targeting national and regional
    opinion-shapers, former national security managers, other political
    leaders, and elite activists in world affairs councils;
    a mechanism to enlist domestic organizations and lobbies to counter the
    political strength of military industry;
    a blueprint to eductate members of Congress and the Administration;
    and further refinement of an extensive - but targeted - communications
    plan, some elements of which are developed below.
The strategies will be developed over the next few months through
continuation and expansion of the working process.

The groups most active in the Military Spending Working Group currently
include:

Campaign for New Priorities
Center for Defense Information
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment
Committee for National Security
Common Agenda
Council for a Livable World
Council on Economic Priorities
Economists Allied for Arms Reduction
Federation of American Scientists
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies
International Center for Technology Assessment
Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy
National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament
National Priorities Project
National Security News Service
Peace Action
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Project on Defense Alternatives
Project on Demilitarization and Democracy
20/20 Vision
Women's Action for New Directions

The initial product of the Military Spending Working Group joint effort
is a briefing book, which will be used in political leadership and
public education efforts in 1995. The Guiding Principles on National
Security thematic message development document, the Dirty Dozen and Top
Ten lists, and the arguments of the Debating Points on Military Spending
are currently under active development and a first edition was completed
in April 1995. The Dirty Dozen and Top Ten lists have been circulated in
Congress and distributed to the media at a press conference. The Common
Agenda Coalition has put together a report tuned to grassroots audiences
entitled Creating A Common Agenda, Strategies for Our Communities to be
released around Tax Day.

Other groups that could share materials and information produced during
the campaign include (but are not limited to):

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
American Baptist Churches' Office of Governmental Relations
Church of the Brethren
Citizens Budget Campaign
Common Cause
Friends of the Earth
Greenpeace
Human Needs Coalition
League of Women Voters
Mennonite Central Committee
Military Production Network
Mobilization for Survival
National Economic Conversion Alliance
National Priorities Project
Natural Resources Defense Council
NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Oxfam
Presbyterian Church USA
Project Bread
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
United Church of Christ Office for Church in Society

and university-based peace studies programs and concerned labor
organizations.


TWO-YEAR TIME LINE

The initial start-up period of the Military Spending Campaign entails
identifying the need for and goals of a campaign, the unique talents of
participating organizations, the tactical opportunities to catalyze a
greater public debate and the assets required. While the goal is to
establish a new trend line of reduced U.S. military spending before the
turn of the century, the opportunity to accomplish this change must be
seized quickly. Hence, the time line for this part of the campaign
envisions a two year effort that culminates with the first budget plan
of the presidential administration that will be in office in the year
2000. The time line is broken into two parts: a planning cycle time line
and an implementation activities time line.


Planning Cycle Time Line

July 1994
Military Spending Working Group Formed

Fall 1994
Weekly coordination and planning meetings of the Military Spending
Working Group underway -- to continue indefinitely

November 1994
Capitol Hill Conference of the Military Spending Working Group and
experts conducts operational planning

January 1995
Information Systems Working Group starts bi-weekly meeting

March 1995
Media Working Group starts bi-weekly meetings

April 1995
Internet Home Page Matrix of organization involved in the Military
Spending Working Group and Information Systems Working Group established

June 1995
Spring operational planning meeting

Summer 1995
Summer strategic planning session for organizations participating in the
military spending campaign

Summer 1995
Military Spending Working Group set of integrated long-term strategies
is finalized

November 1995
Annual Capitol Hill operational planning meeting of military spending
campaign

January 1996
Tactical planning at Coolfont annual conference of the peace and
security community

April 1996
Spring operational planning meeting -- refine integrated strategies

July 1996
Summer strategic planning session -- general political assessment

November 1996
Annual Capitol Hill meeting for operational planning -- refine
integrated strategies

January 1997
Tactical planning at Coolfont annual conference of the peace and
security community

April 1997
Spring operational planning meeting -- refine integrated strategies

July 1997
Summer strategic planning session -- general political assessment


Implementation Activities Time Line

February 1995
Press Briefing featuring Dr. Lawrence Korb, The Hon. William Colby and
Mr. John Pike on the "Contract with America" and its implications for
the military budget
Information Systems Working Group formed to assist the efforts of the
Military Spending Group
Budget workshops around the country held by Citizens Budget Campaign, to
be replicated by grassroots groups

April 1995
10th: Common Agenda releases report, Creating a Common Agenda,
Strategies for Our Communities, at press conference in Washington, D.C.
20th-22nd: International Citizens Assembly for connecting the U.N.
Conference on the Extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to
the proliferation of conventional weapons

May 1995
National Defense Industry Layoffs Analysis and Recommendations report by
the National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament (ECD)
released at press conference
Common Agenda local Impact Tours follow up on Tax Day events

June 1995
28th-30th: NECA/ECD/CEC conversion media event to highlight successes
and hold accountable major prime contractors for resisting full-fledged
conversion

August 1995
Information and training for grassroots activists
Local events commemorating events of 50 years ago incorporate military
spending themes

September 1995
Military Spending Group conducts Public Forums in three major regional
media markets highlighting the military appropriations bills
Continue local events
Information Systems upgraded in the participating organizations

October 1995
Military Spending Group arranges radio talk show interviews around the
country focusing on the beginning of the next fiscal year and military
spending
Joint activities among a broad range of groups that may not normally
coordinate their work, such as veterans and church groups

1996 January 1996
State of the Union events conducted in selected states.

February 1996
Washington press briefing on the upcoming military budget

April 15, 1996
Military Spending Group arranges Public Forums focusing on the amount of
each tax dollar allocated to military spending

Fall 1996
Implement strategy to influence elite opinion in favor of exploring new,
cheaper national security strategies immediately after the new term
begins, whether of an old or new Administration

Winter 1996
Publish statement by establishment opinion leaders detailing scope of
and need for a new national security strategy and deeper military
spending cuts

January 1997
State of the Union, first year of the new term

February 1997
Washington press briefing on the upcoming military budget


COMPONENTS OF THE INTEGRATED STRATEGY




1 - ANALYTICAL ACTIVITIES

Opinion leaders remain more supportive than the general public to
reductions in military spending, but elite support for further
reductions has substantially declined in recent years. The post-Cold War
elite consensus that military spending should be lowered appears to have
been lost because of acceptance of the Bottom-Up Review two war
strategy, and the sense that the budget is under-funded for that
mission. Analytical materials will be produced to inspire and prepare
opinion leaders to take up the case for lower spending again. The
campaign will initiate production of reports, statements, and press
releases, promote the establishment of authoritative panels, and
coordinate press conferences and media events to disseminate their
conclusions and get out the word that opinion-leaders are no longer
content with the status quo.

The strategy in performing new analytical activities will not just be to
generate more studies pointing out why the two simultaneous unilateral
war strategy is excessive. A significant new element will be to target
the opinion-shaping elite audience, members of the foreign policy
establishment, often former government practitioners, or perhaps a group
of distinguished former senators, who continue to exert a substantial
influence on the shaping of current policy.

In the initial implementation phase analytical materials will be
produced by organizations in the military spending campaign with core
competence in research and analysis. These information products will be
provided for use in the Outreach component and the Media component of
the campaign. Participating groups specializing in those components will
be responsible for distribution. All distribution efforts will also
utilize methods identified and organized by the Information Systems
component to actively disseminate all products electronically through
the Internet.

Outreach component analytical materials will have as target audiences:
(1) other groups participating in the campaign, for use as input into
their own products, (2) the memberships of these groups, (3) the
memberships of domestic issues groups concerned with lack of funding for
domestic needs, and (4) the public at large.

Media component analytical materials will target: (1) print, radio, and
TV media directly, and, indirectly through those media, (2)
opinion-shapers, pundits, national security experts, and (3) political
leaders and decision-makers.

Longer and more in-depth analytical materials will be provided to
experts and policy-makers to influence their thinking directly and to
provide substantive research backup for proposals to lower military
spending.

The variety of target audiences for these materials requires that they
be issued in different packages appropriate to the audience. Outreach
groups will assist groups producing the materials in making the products
appropriate for distribution to wider audiences. Products will include:

    Major studies up to 100 pages. Major audiences: national security
    experts, academics.
    Three to five major research reports (30-50 pages) a year with
    relevance to military spending issues. Major audiences: policy-makers,
    experts, other campaign groups, media.
    10-page executive summaries of major studies and reports. Major
    audiences: other campaign groups, media, busy experts, Congressional
    staffers.
    4- to 5-page rapid response memos. The research base will also
    constitute a capacity for quick reaction to media inquires. This
    requires in-house annotated data-bases of numerous military policy
    subject areas. Major audiences: defense media, opinion leaders,
    grassroots.
    1-page factsheets - clear, stimulating, fact-filled, and visually
    interesting. Major audiences: media, grassroots, the public,
    Congressional staffers.
Maintaining close liaison between activities in Washington and
analytical support functions in other locales (particularly Boston) will
require regular participation in weekly Working Group meetings and
utilization of new electronic communication and conferencing
capabilities provided through the information systems component of the
campaign.

Participating groups anticipate working in the following substantive
priority areas:


A - Military Strategy, Forces, and Budget

A key element of substantively impacting the military budget is through
engaging in the "big questions" debate about strategy and its subsidiary
parts. The military spending issue will require capabilities to analyze
current and emerging U.S. strategic and operational doctrine, force
structure, armament and a number of other important issues such as
threat analysis and lift capacity. This analysis must identify
alternatives to current policy directions.

Defense Budget Project (DBP), Institute for Defense and Disarmament
Studies (IDDS), the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA), the Center
for Defense Information (CDI), the Federation of American Scientists
(FAS), and the National Commission for Economic Conversion and
Disarmament (ECD) are developing substantive analytical products
addressing force-level and top-line issues.


B - Alternative Security Policies

A longer-term effort will develop alternative scenarios for the
post-2001 (i.e., post-FYDP) global security environment, and to consider
the implications for military forces of these possible new international
structures. In the past, exploration of alternative security policies
could not hope to produce much change while the Cold War still loomed.
Now, however, such examinations can have a major influence on national
security strategies and the need for very large standing military
forces. One component of this effort will be the identification and
development of people in the academic community who can provide
analytical backup and serve as resources or speakers for contemplated
outreach events.

IDDS is working to build consensus within the community on alternatives.


C - International Institutions and United Nations

The continued regional and ethnic conflicts around the globe highlight
the inadequacy of current U.S. policy towards the United Nations and the
need to build up the international capacity of U.N. and multilateral
institutions to deal with conflicts outside the realm of traditional
U.S. security interests. In addition, cooperative international
restraint of the arms trade will go much further to lessening the
regional rivalries and conflicts that the world faces today and stem the
need for the next generation of U.S. weaponry. These and other security
measures are answers to those calling for the maintenance of a huge and
unnecessary military force that would have the nation pay dearly.

PDA, ECD, FAS, IDDS and Council for a Livable World (CLW) are developing
materials in these areas.


D - Economic Conversion

Conversion, in its broadest sense, requires reinvestment of defense
savings into areas of vital public need that will generate new jobs in
both non-defense and defense-dependent sectors. Pressures to reduce the
deficit have blocked reinvestment of defense savings into the domestic
economy. This fact, coupled with the threat of deep cuts in domestic
programs, will create opportunities for broader mobilization against
military spending increases, particularly if the congressional
leadership moves to wall off defense from further cuts after the 1996
elections. On other fronts, conversion analysts must show how job
blackmail is often used by defense contractors to oppose cuts in weapons
programs and win congressional and public support. Yet, many major
contractors have laid off workers in droves, while using public monies
to pay for restructuring costs and plant closures. Greater public demand
for corporate accountability represents a real opportunity for
conversion advocates to make the case against Pentagon corporate
welfare, especially policies that subsidize prime contractors while
letting workers and communities bear the brunt of the adjustment burden.

The National Economic Conversion Alliance (NECA), including ECD, Peace
Action, and Jobs With Peace are the key contacts for this issue.


E - -Secrecy & Intelligence

One significant barrier to realizing savings in military spending is the
excessive secrecy and great complexity of intelligence, military space
and other high technology military programs, which together account for
more than $50 billion each year (about one-fifth the current military
budget). As long as these parts of the military budget remain bastions
of secrecy, weeding out the unneeded programs will be difficult. The
technical complexity of these programs, in contrast to the relatively
straightforward matters of ships and tanks and airplanes, remains a
further obstacle to savings. These programs will require particular
analytical focus. A succession of scandals in intelligence and covert
operations has made this a topic of opportunity that can be exploited to
raise broader spending issues.

DBP, FAS and Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) are developing
materials in these areas.


2 - OUTREACH AND PUBLIC EDUCATION ON MILITARY SPENDING

A concerted series of public education activities will be implemented to
confirm and strengthen existing public beliefs about the necessity and
possibility of reducing military spending, and to mobilize citizens to
act on these beliefs. This component of the campaign will target both
concerned citizens at large, as well as constituencies most directly
affected by excessive or misdirected military spending. These activities
will mobilize an expanding circle of organizations in the peace and
security community, religious networks, and other organized national
constituencies.

Based on our over-all message development activities, information
prepared in the Analysis component of the campaign will initially be
distributed to groups working on the military spending issue. These
groups will distribute materials to their members, and to groups working
on domestic needs. Groups with domestic concerns, such as religious and
labor organizations, may not currently be focusing directly on military
spending, but continued high military spending has a highly detrimental
effect on their issues, principally by limiting the availability of
resources to address those problems. They are natural allies who can be
galvanized into action by exposure to the materials to be distributed in
the Outreach component.

As materials are disseminated to participating organizations'
memberships and the memberships of other interested groups, the broader
public too will increasingly become aware of the messages and
information needed to shift the center of debate over the long run.

The cost and time-lag of trying to coordinate with groups in other
countries has made it heretofore almost prohibitive to conduct in-depth
and sustained joint efforts across oceans and borders. The Information
Systems component of this campaign, however, will greatly simplify
communication and contact with groups in other countries working on
these issues. Participating groups in the United States will be able to
trade relevant information, analyses, experiences and strategies with
other groups globally.

Public Forums

One of the coordination activities will be to orchestrate a series of
public forums across the country run by groups with track records in
putting together these events. The forums will be designed to give high
visibility to the questions surrounding the military budget debate and
to address the key issue of national priorities: how large a military
budget does the United States need to guarantee our security from
external threats and what are the domestic social and economic security
implications of excessive military spending.

To shift the national perception of the magnitude of military spending
required in the post-Cold War era, it is critically important that
credible speakers are engaged to speak out on behalf of these arguments.
The public forum series will match defense budget experts with speakers
engaged in analyzing the social and economic impact of excessive
military spending, e.g., Marion Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense
Fund and John Kenneth Galbraith of Harvard University.

We will strive to bring together the broadest coalition of local
organizations to sponsor the public forum in a given area, to work the
media for the event, and to organize the details of the day. Media
efforts will include, when possible, press briefings, editorial board
meetings, and radio talk show appearances. We will also seek to place
opinion articles by the above experts and other members of the Military
Spending Working Group placed in newspapers across the country, as well
as longer articles in popular publications. And we will continue to work
with these ad-hoc coalitions after the public forums, alerting them to
valuable materials for use with the media, for their own newsletters,
for study group sessions etc.

Local Events

In addition to the more broadly structured public forums, we will work
with groups across the country to provide speakers and materials for
town
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