The new military pay and retirement benefits plan proposed by the Defense Department last week is bold, expensive, long overdue and absolutely necessary. It’s also, unless Congress and the White House suddenly develop an unprecedented measure of self-control, at the mercy political gamesmanship.

Before the legislative and executive branches engage in another round of trying to prove who loves our men and women in uniform more without spending any real money to prove it, here are a few facts they may want to consider: military pay now lags a good 15 percent behind the civilian sector; more than 12,000 soldiers and sailors qualify for food stamps; the services estimate they’ll fall some 10,000 recruits short this year. And they all agree the quality of the recruit isn’t as high as it was just a few years ago.

The plan proposed by Defense Secretary Bill Cohen and Joint Chiefs Chairmen Gen. Henry Shelton plays some serious catch-up. It call for across-the-board raises of 4.4 percent in 2000, followed by raises of 3.9 percent from 2001 through 2005. The plan also envisions additional targeted pay raises for certain noncommissioned officers and mid-grade commissioned officers, compensating them for the greater responsibilities they have taken on as a result of the drawdown in personnel. It would reform pay tables for the first time in 50 years, closing the gap between enlisted and officer pay, and make raises for promotions larger than raises for length of service. It would restore retirement pay after 20 years’ service to 50 percent, undoing the damage done in 1986 when it was cut to 40 percent.

The entire six-year package will cost an estimated $30 billion. That’s a lot. But if history repeats, it’s also remarkably close to the pork Congress could be expected to pack into the Defense budget in the form of planes, ships and home-district building projects the Pentagon does not ask for and does not want.

The plan certainly will revive the argument about reviving the draft. But the military’s most dire personnel shortfall is not in the type of personnel a draft would fetch — the recent high-school graduate with marginal academic accomplishments and no particular career goals. The military’s real problem is its inability to retain its most-highly trained members, such as pilots and computer technicians, and the college-bound high-achievers who would take their place simply aren’t interested. If past drafts are an indication, they would be exempt under a new one.

The Air Force, for example, spends more than $9 million training each of its pilots. Yet an Air Force pilot with nine years’ service is paid less than one-third what a private-sector pilot can expect. No wonder they bail out.

Since the last draft ended at the close of the Vietnam War, military and civilian experts have warned that the high-tech military of the future cannot function with personnel serving two-year stints. It’s taken 25 years to get something on the table. Let’s hope the White House and Congress don’t play games with it.