Defense Budget: Alternative Measures of Costs of Military Commitments Abroad (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
June 16, 1995 |
| Report Number |
95-726 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Stephen Daggett, Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
As of Sept. 30, 1994, about 286,594 U.S. active duty military personnel were stationed overseas,
including about 128,000 in European NATO countries, over 45,000 in Japan, and almost 37,000 in
Korea. (1) Under current plans, the number of U.S. troops stationed ashore
in Europe will decline to
100,000 by the end of FY1996, but other overseas deployments will remain stable. The Department
of Defense projects that it will spend $16Â billion in FY1996 to pay and operate forces
permanently
stationed ashore in foreign countries. (2)
This $16 billion figure, however, reflects only one way of measuring the costs borne by the
United States for military activities abroad. Other definitions of costs are applied frequently. In the
103rd Congress, where Members of Congress addressed defense burdensharing issues on the floor
of the House or Senate more than forty times, figures cited for the costs of "defending our allies"
ranged from $1 billion a year to $180 billion. (3) The main source of this wide
divergence is the very
different definitions of overseas costs being used. Commonly cited measures of overseas costs range
from very narrow to very broad, including (1) incremental costs of deploying forces abroad rather
than in the continental United States; (2)Â direct pay and operating costs of U.S. forces
deployed
overseas; (3) total costs, including prorated shares of weapons acquisition, overhead, and indirect
support, of U.S. forces deployed abroad; and (4) total costs of U.S. forces assigned to fulfill regional
commitments. This report explains these measures and analyzes some of the strengths and
weaknesses of each.
1. Â Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Service,
Directorate for Information Operations and
Reports, Worldwide Manpower Distribution by Geographical Area , September 30, 1994.
2. Â Department of Defense, Defense Overseas Funding,
FY1996/FY1997 , February 1995.
3. Â See: Congressional Record , September 9, 1993,
p. H6550 and Congressional Record , May 18, 1994, p.
H3539.
