You have to give President Obama credit. It takes serious gall to tell the American military to its face that you are putting it on the road to second-class status.
That’s exactly what our commander-in-chief did at the Pentagon yesterday, as he announced nearly half a trillion dollars in new spending cuts, after already chopping $480 billion during his first three years in office. He also set out plans for drastic reductions in our force size and continuing weapons programs, including the F-35 fighter — our last best hope for maintaining American dominance in the skies.
Obama’s been trying to reassure Americans all this won’t endanger our national security or our strategic interests. Everyone in or out of uniform who’s free to speak knows better — and that with a full-scale war still underway we are standing on the brink of our weakest military posture since Jimmy Carter, and our smallest forces since before World War II.
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Part of Obama’s rationale is his declared belief that America no longer needs to have a military big enough to fight two wars at once — even though that’s been our historical experience more often than not (think the European and the Pacific theaters in World War II, Vietnam and the Cold War with Russia, Iraq and Afghanistan).
More important, President Obama doesn’t understand that our military’s role isn’t just fighting wars. It’s providing a strong strategic presence that will influence events in our favor — and away from that of adversaries and rivals. Even he admits these drastic cuts can only come through shrinking that presence world-wide, which means deep cuts in our forces in Europe and the Middle East, while expecting a shrinking navy (which could wind up with barely 230 ships by 2020) and air force to keep our interests safe in the Pacific region — where China is surging.
Yet as the latest confrontation with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz shows, while a war rages in Afghanistan and a peace threatens to come unglued in Iraq, not to mention Pakistan, the Middle East is still a major crucible of conflict. And even if our European allies are willing to take up the slack and beef up their defense budgets as we leave — a highly dubious proposition — our vote on what happens there and with a belligerent Russia and increasingly anti-Western Turkey will count for less and less.
Still, the lasting damage the Obama chainsaw does is not to our military’s present, but to its future.
Of course, Obama’s team says it can still defend that future by spending smarter and cutting out “waste, fraud, and abuse” — this, from the people who inflated our deficit by $1.5 trillion, and gave us the $787 billion non-stimulus and Solyndra. In fact, it’s the programs that define the cutting edge of future military technology, and will lead the next military revolution, that are now the most in peril.
A good example is the Future Combat Systems, the program for transforming the Army into a highly mobile force with unmanned combat vehicles and other futuristic technology launched by Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon. The program itself was axed two years ago, with the promise that the resources allocated for modernization would go directly to the Army and Marines. Don’t count on that now.
Other examples are the Airborne Laser, also axed in 2010, and the Navy’s hypersonic electromagnetic rail gun, which could help combat Chinese anti-ship missiles aimed at our carrier strike groups in the event of a conflagration in the Pacific, the region President Obama claims he’s so worried about. It lost its funding earlier this year. Missile defense will certainly be next to feel the knife.
Unlike our big army or naval bases, these programs have little or no constituencies, which means they get little attention or protection from Congress. Yet they are vital to preparing America for its future wars, and to its credible strategic presence. A cash-strapped Pentagon is bound to cut them first, even as our present force structure is dwindling to potentially perilous levels.
Fortunately, some of the Republican presidential candidates have seen the danger coming. Mitt Romney has urged keeping the defense budget at 4 percent of GDP — today’s baseline programs are barely above 3 percent — and wants to expand the Navy’s desperately endangered shipbuilding program. Rick Perry has asked Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to resign rather than accede to cuts that are, in Newt Gingrich’s words, “very dangerous to the survival of the country.”
Still, until Congress and the American public wake up to the peril lying ahead, Obama will continue his program of unilateral American disarmament — that is, unless the 2012 election can stop him cold.
Usually I clap my hands in joy at the writings in National Review. However, it's clear you folks are missing the bigger point.
Obama is installing a police force of TSA and Federal Government security officials far equal to the reduction of soldiers.
Obama's needs a strong police force for the enslavement of America and does not need a good military for that task.
A large military might actually get alarmed over the out-of-control police state this nation is becoming.
It is over. So, watch the movie "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and wonder what the point of the Cold War was for when we ended up with a P.C. police state in the USA that has the gall to tell you what to eat, what to believe, what to think, and what to drink. At least the Soviets had state subsidized vodka to take the bureaucratic garbage from their government. The P.C. minions of America want to regulate what you eat, drink, smoke, and every minor aspect of your life.
I have give a bitter laugh when military members are told "you're defending the freedoms of the USA."
And my guess is you think it's sort of funny to watch a TSA thug giving the third degree to some poor mother with two young children going through an airport.
It's always fun to see a leftist troll make postings calling for more government searches of innocent Americans. Should you not be posting at "Atlantic"? Best wishes.
"And even if our European allies are willing to take up the slack and beef up their defense budgets as we leave..."
ROTFL
"Future Combat Systems"
FCS was pretty lame. Budget woes or not, it needed to go away.
If the government were not in a headlong charge for the cliff of financial catastrophe, I'd be more worried about these cuts. But with the economic future I see before us, I don't understand how you can expect to see much in the way of high tech systems being brought into service anyway. Worse, we will eventually be unable to sustain what military we have. It will get smaller and smaller and our ability to conduct operations with it will lessen.
Other countries will take advantage of our deepening weakness in coming years and just as our capacity for winning wars is declining, the likelihood of such wars will increase. Again, it will only get worse if overall federal spending doesn't drop to realistic levels - and I really doubt that the spending is going to drop to realistic levels.
These cuts may be unwise, but recognize that they were voluntary. The ones that lie ahead are not - they will be the results of economic inevitability.
"You have to give President Obama credit. It takes serious gall to tell the American military to its face that you are putting it on the road to second-class status."
Well, if there's one thing that Obama has, it's 'gall'.
And you've got to give Obama credit for something else, too - he'll end up being the most successful enemy this country has ever had.
Get your mind right for the beginning phase of dhimmitude.
What we need is total mobilization of the American people into The War Korps. I used a "K" there because it looks more Germanic, and military, and therefore more imposing. Everyone would have some sort of snappy looking uniform. Then, armed to the teeth we could adapt that famous slogan from the late (and unlamented) Hermann Goering (Head of the German Luftwaffe during World War II) who is quoted as saying "Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat". Then we can also invade more countries and Americanize them so they will become our friends and allies and stand with us against the global forces of evil in the final battle with Satan and his minions. Then we will be on the right track. Right?!
We could start by amercanizing that Commie Obama, he's cutting our military to the bone and we'll have nothing to confront the horrid threat posed by the scary Iranians.
I agree with the author's basic thrust that we need to spend more on preparation for future wars. I've seen too many admonitions, both from columnists and from people associated with the government, to spend more on preparing for small wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The primary purpose of our military must always remain to protect us from existential threats to our freedom. Terrorism is painful, but unlikely to destroy us.
China, if they are able to reach a standard of living comparable to ours, will have an economy and thus a warmaking ability 4 times as large as ours. And China appears to be on a fascist trajectory toward external wars (they're already plainly threatening Taiwan and the sea between the Phillippines and Vietname). That is the threat we need to prepare for.
Part of facing that threat unfortunately means cutting back in other areas of defense spending, because we can't maintain significant defense spending in the long term if our economy fails to produce in the long term.
In looking at the overall budget, it is clear that the only place where there is any excess or waste is the military. DOE is "tight as a tick" with efficiency. Solyndra and Fisker (did you see that Fisker recalled ALL of its 2012 electric cars?) are good example's of leadership with clear vision and discipline. The billion dollars they administered for energy efficiency programs for houses that went to people who don't own homes was a drop in the bucket.
You folks are whining when we should be lining the streets with joy for the Cool Aide party of 2012.
Are you on crack?? "In looking at the overall budget, it is clear that the only place where there is any excess or waste is the military. " So you believe the tens of trillions of dollars wasted on entitlement programs and other boondoggles - those didn't involve excess or waste?? And you're supposed to be taken seriously?? Come on, man!
Ummm, I think he was being facetious. To be serious, you all are friggin nuts if you think invading middle eastern countries protects us at home. The only ones threatening us at home are the kids of the middle easterners we been serially invading, remotely bombing and generally killing. How about not doing that anymore.
It's interesting that Mark's post could've been printed a little over ten years ago--that the only threat we face are the "kids of the Middle Eastern countries we been serially invading" etc. Matter of fact, that would've made a superb New York Times letter to the editor on September 10, 2001.
When are we going to learn that isolationism doesn't work, that there are people out there who want to kill us because we exist? Or do we need a few more 9/11s and Pearl Harbors? Maybe next time the death toll will be only 10,000 or so.
Mark, Agreed with the "facetious." Regarding the practical value of going halfway around the globe and killing lots of folks, it's a good demonstration of power. I won't argue the specifics because you've studied the matter and reached a conclusion, but we've proven we can "Reach out and touch someone" and that has value. I personally prefer proxy war but I understand the motivations behind Iraq and Afghanistan.
I take your closing line to mean that 9/11 was justified by America's prior abuse of power. SuperCool. Bin Laden was a "kid" and we had been "serially invading" Saudi? Oh, that's right, in the 1950s we had some fun in Iran, like the Sunni love the Shia. Smiles. Must've been/be our support for Israel, don't you agree? A thriving democracy where Arabs have more voting rights than any country they run. Yep, we were asking for it by backing Israel. Best to sell them out.
If we do it once we won't have to do it any more. Nice Final Solution you have in mind...
Defense Dept can and should be cut some.........but what? I say cut Muslim and Gay sensitivity training for troops. I say stop all the govt paid daycare for female soldiers who get pregnant.
I say re-start building the F-22 fighter. I say build moreNavy ships. I say modernize our nuclear weapons.
I say cut funding for ACORN and other re-elect Democrat "social programs".
First of all, this article is not journalism; it is strictly an op ed piece poised as a news article. You're the one with the gal to speak for ALL of us in and out of uniform by saying: "[President] Obama’s been trying to reassure Americans all this won’t endanger our national security or our strategic interests. Everyone in or out of uniform who’s free to speak knows better".
First of all, don't speak for me! I know what's going on and you didn't state it. I am a person in and out of uniform on a professional basis and I know that these cuts are not only necessary but reasonable. For example, you state above: "the F-35 fighter — our last best hope for maintaining American dominance in the skies." is not true. You completely fail to mention that our Air Force has the F-22 and the our Navy has the F-18 that can do the job just fine! What you also fail to mention is that these cuts will happen over the next 10 years. 10 years! We've been at war for 10 years up until a month ago when the President kept his promise and sent the troops home from Iraq after killing Osama Bin Laden!
Here's what the DOD had to say about the cuts: "Obama: Defense Strategy Will Maintain U.S. Military Pre-eminence"
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
"WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2012 – President Barack Obama today announced a defense strategy he said will allow the military to defend the United States and its national interests while cutting military spending in a responsible, balanced manner."
The president spoke about the conclusions of the defense strategy guidance at the Pentagon briefing room today.
"The strategy guidance's bottom line is that the United States armed forces will remain the pre-eminent military force in the world, the president said in a letter attached to the review." The United States also will work to maintain progress in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. “We are supporting political and economic reform and deepening partnership as to ensure regional security,” he said."
What you also fail to mention is that Mr. Panetta, the Defense Secretary, agrees with the mandate of cutting defense spending: "All of this comes at a time when America confronts a very serious deficit and debt problem here at home, a problem which is itself a national security risk that is squeezing both the defense and domestic budgets. Even as we face these considerable pressures, including the requirement of the Budget Control Act to reduce defense spending by what we have now as the number of $487 billion over 10 years, I do not believe -- and I've said this before -- that we have to choose between our national security and fiscal responsibility. The Department of Defense will play its part in helping the nation put our fiscal house in order."
"We must avoid hollowing out the force -- a smaller, ready, and well-equipped military is much more preferable to a larger, ill-prepared force that has been arbitrarily cut across the board."
Delivered by Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta
So there you have it straight from the DOD's mouth! Not only does the military see a need to cut spending, but it has a plan to maintain its power dominance to protect our country.
You conservative keep yapping about how we need to cut spending, but when it comes to our military and war - which funds the oil companies very nicely - you get upset and point the blame at our President.
Look at yourself first and use the truth before you write an article masked as news.
