Lawrence Korb Discusses Defense Policy
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: For more perspective now on President Bush's national security policy, we're joined by Lawrence Korb, a former assistant defense secretary who's now vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Korb, thanks for joining us this morning.</s>LAWRENCE KORB, VICE PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Nice to be with you.</s>PHILLIPS: I know you're also a former captain in the Navy. Just quickly, before we get into the topic at hand, with regard to the sub collision, do you think this is any reflection on the needs in the military?</s>KORB: No, I don't think so. I think either this was a mistake, where people weren't as carefully as they should be, or that some of the equipment didn't function. But I don't think this has any relation to what President Bush is saying about the bad state of the military.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. Well, let's talk about the state of the military. President Bush says help is on the way. What do you think we're going to see this week? What can we expect from the president?</s>KORB: Well, I think he's going to do three things. No. 1, he's going to talk about providing a little bit of money for pay and quality of life. Then he's going to talk about the most important thing on Tuesday, which is transforming the military, so that it can really get away from its Cold War orientation toward a 21st century type of military. And the third thing, he'll talk to the Guard and Reserve, who are becoming an increasing part of the -- of the military.</s>PHILLIPS: Let's talk about the conditions: health care, living conditions. Do you believe in that -- that the military definitely needs more money for salaries and living conditions?</s>KORB: The military doesn't need more money. They need to manage it better. I mean, they have a pay system which is oriented back toward the Depression rather than the 21st century. They really need to change the way they do things. During the campaign, President Bush and Vice President Cheney gave the impression, using that term that help is on the way, that they were going to come in and give them a lot of money. That would have been a big mistake. I'm glad that they're not doing it. But they did send a message that in fact they would do it. There's plenty of money. The problem is, are we going to spend it in the right ways so that we get the most defense for the dollar?</s>PHILLIPS: Interesting that the president says -- tomorrow, he's going to announce, we've learned, a billion dollars will go toward salary increases, et cetera. All right. You don't think that's necessary. When we talk about handling the money better, what type of modernizing, what type of change is necessary for the military then?</s>KORB: Well, if you take a look, for example, at the type of weapons they're building -- the F-22 fighter aircraft, the V-22 tilt rotor Osprey -- these types of weapons were conceived during the Cold War. They're very expensive. They would have been -- made sense to deal with a very sophisticated Soviet military. They do not now. And they're so expensive they can't replace the existing weapons on a one- for-one basis. For example, you spend over $80 million for an Osprey, you spend almost $200 million for an F-22 fighter plane, and so therefore some of the current equipment is wearing out.</s>PHILLIPS: How about missile defense? Donald Rumsfeld came out and said this is definitely a moral issue. What do you think he means by that and what's your take on the necessary of missile defense and more funds for that?</s>KORB: Well, this is -- it's not a moral issue. It's a theologically issue for Republicans, ever since President Reagan gave his famous speech back in 1983. This would be the worst thing to do. The technology is nowhere near ready to go. It will annoy not only our competitors, like China and Russia, it'll annoy the European allies. We've spend over $100 billion on national missile defense and we have nothing to show for it. I mean, this is something you ought to continue to do research and development on, but it's really not something you should rush into deployment. And this is something that President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld have said they're going to do regardless of what the rest of the world thinks.</s>PHILLIPS: Lawrence Korb, former assistant defense secretary, thank you so much for joining us.</s>KORB: Nice to be with you.