-Caveat Lector- Bush Seeks $20B for New Weapons By RON FOURNIER .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush is promising to ``redefine war on our terms'' with a defense policy that pumps billions of dollars into the search for new weapons he said would help America keep the peace. Unveiling his plans for the U.S. military in a speech today, the GOP front-runner said he would increase spending on research and development of weapons, raise soldiers' salaries, develop an anti-ballistic missile system and avoid ``vague, aimless and endless'' troop deployments throughout the world. ``If elected, I will set three goals: I will renew the bond of trust between the American president and the American military; I will defend the American people against missiles and terror; and I will begin creating the military of the next century,'' he said in an early draft of his speech to the Citadel military academy in Charleston, S.C. ``The best way to keep the peace is to redefine war on our terms,'' he said. The two-term Texas governor holds a hefty lead in polls over all Democratic and Republican presidential contenders. The address - part of a series of speeches designed to spell out his presidential agenda - is an answer to critics who say Bush is not ready to be president and that his views on public policy are undeveloped. In advance of his remarks, Democrats warned that Bush wanted to return to the policies of Republican Presidents Reagan and Bush, his father. ``He already wants a tax cut that would destabilize Social Security and Medicare. Now he wants huge defense increases that would threaten education and health care,'' said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Patricia Ewing. ``We've already lived through huge tax cuts and defense increases that ruined our economic prosperity. We don't want to go back to that.'' The biggest price tag in Bush's package is for research and development, where Bush would increase spending by $20 billion over five years. The annual Pentagon budget is about $270 billion. In addition, 20 percent of the current budget for weapons and information systems should be earmarked for the purchase of weapons that take advantage of new technologies, Bush said. With the end of the Cold War - what he called ``the hard but clear struggle against an evil empire'' - Bush said America must take advantage of ``a revolution in the technology of war'' to remain strong enough to maintain peace throughout the world. Reagan called Russia an ``evil empire'' when Bush's father was vice president. ``Our challenge is not as obvious, but just as noble: To turn these years of influence into decades of peace,'' the governor said. ``Power is increasingly defined, not by mass or size, but by mobility and swiftness,'' Bush said. ``Influence is measured in information, safety is gained in stealth, and force is projected on the long arc of precision-guided weapons,'' he said. ``This revolution perfectly matches the strengths of our country - and the skill of our people and the superiority of our technology.'' He vowed to challenge each branch of the armed services to move beyond marginal improvements in existing weapons systems to ``skip a generation of technology.'' ``This involves spending more and spending more wisely,'' he said. Bush implied that the Clinton administration has broken faith with U.S. troops by paying them too little and putting them in harms' way too often. He promised to spend $1 billion a year for years on top of a pay increase pending in Congress to increase their salaries, and said he would order a review of overseas commitments. Their mission is ``to deter wars - and win wars when deterrence fails,'' Bush said. ``Sending our military on vague, aimless and endless deployments is the swift solvent of morale.'' Advisers said Bush has no problem with long-standing commitments to countries such as Israel, Japan and South Korea. But the Texas governor, who supported the U.S.-led NATO intervention in Kosovo, wants to look at what he considers to be more open-ended peacekeeping operations in places such as Kosovo and Bosnia. ``This is not a call to withdraw from the world, rather a realization that we ... cannot be everywhere in the world,'' said his top foreign policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice. Bush also called for the development of anti-ballistic missile systems that would be deployed inside and outside the United States ``to guard against attack and blackmail.'' The Clinton administration plans to decide as early as June 2000 whether to deploy a limited national defense system. Republicans and Democrats are generally in agreement that a theater-based system should be developed as soon as possible. On troop salaries, the administration is proposing 4.4 percent increases, while Congress is seeking 4.8 percent. Bush put no price tag on his anti-missile plan. Rice said the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia would need to be amended, and Bush would be willing to scrap the pact if the necessary changes could not be made. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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