A Hollow Army Reappraised: President Carter, Defense Budgets, and the Politics of Military Readiness

: The term hollow army or the broader expression, hollow force, has as much currency today as it did when an Army Chief of Staff first uttered the phrase 3 decades ago. In this period of declining defense budgets, the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have articulated how the newly released strategic guidance and budget priorities represent a concerted effort not to hollow out U.S. forces. They have affirmed their dedication to preventing the re-creation of the ragged military and disastrous deterioration in defense capability the Jimmy Carter administration allowed to occur. Thus, more than 30 years later, the expression continues to be as politically potent as it was when first spoken. However, it is also time to reexamine the term hollow army and its meaning as the inevitable tug of war over defense spending gets underway.