ABSTRACT
President Carter came into office with a commitment to cut defense. The conceptual basis for the decline in US spending on these forces and on active defenses, as well as the basis for the Strategic Arms Limitation process (SALT) process, is that of mutual assured destruction. The Japanese self-defense orientation has precluded them from any but the narrowest interpretation of the defense of Japan from direct attack, an improbable contingency. In order to gain perspective on trends in defense spending, it is helpful to examine other components of gross national product (GNP). In 1979 the SALT II agreement was signed, but by then the cumulative impact of Soviet moves in Africa and elsewhere, together with the continued Soviet military buildup, including nuclear forces, had aroused opposition to SALT among a sizable fraction of the members of Congress. Transfer payments also increased by about 6 percent of the GNP.
