U.S. Defense Cuts Hobble Allies, Embolden Enemies
President Obama’s new defense strategy is sending the wrong message to America’s foes. The new cut-rate approach to national security provides opportunities for Iran and others to exploit an under-funded and under-equipped military.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Senator Obama made no secret of his plans to reduce defense spending. And so it was no surprise when, in April 2011, President Obama ordered the Pentagon to slash its budget by $400 billion. This, of course, came in addition to the $400 billion in cuts he had already imposed. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta subsequently unveiled a defense “strategic review” that conveniently explained that America’s shift in domestic and overseas priorities requires a different approach to defense spending — one that, coincidentally, can accommodate a defense budget that is $400 billion “leaner.”
The prospect of a leaner (i.e., less capable) American military doubtless cheers our foreign adversaries. The leaders of Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and others rant and rave against a U.S. they revile as the “Great Satan” and an “Imperial Yankee,” hell-bent on colonizing their homelands. Yet they have been restrained from challenging us with anything much stronger than words due to our military strength, which assures our forces can prevail anywhere on the world stage.
However, the administration’s naive strategy of negotiating with hostile governments and weakening the military has allowed regimes to threaten U.S. interests. As Mr. Obama initially stated in his inaugural address, if countries like Iran “unclench their fist” they will find an “extended hand” from the United States. Yet the administration fails to consider what will happen when dialogue and diplomatic engagement don’t achieve desired results. As Congressman Buck McKeon (R-CA) recently stated, “Downgrading our [military] force will only harm our ability to respond to unforeseen crises.”
The administration’s reluctance to stand up to its aggressors is not lost on Iran. Days after Mr. Obama’s inauguration, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly interpreted the new president’s offer of negotiation as a sign of weakness “This request means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed,” he stated.
Ok, seriously, I’m gettting tired of conservative pundits using the same tired phrasology I hear coming from Dems and the MSM. Lets be clear. There are no “defense cuts” There is only a decrease in the projected growth of the defense budget. Thats like if i said that next year I was going to buy a Mercedes, then decided that I wasn’t going to buy it. Look I just cut my spending by 85k. I find this type of disingenuous double talk offensive coming from the left or the right. The defense budget is still projected to grow over the next 5 years. Just not at the same rate. Thats not “cutting” spending.
That’s the same principle (“reducing the rate of growth” equals “cutting”) as used in every other Government program. Why should Defense be the odd one out?
it shouldn’t be used anywhere. Its a blatant lie no matter what the program is. Its a foil used by both the left and the right to rile up their base any time anyone talks about cutting spending. This type of Washington double talk is the reason this country is going to default on its debts and go bankrupt. Soon our government won’t be able to fund a bake sale let alone a war.
“During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Senator Obama made no secret of his plans to reduce defense spending. And so it was no surprise when, in April 2011, President Obama ordered the Pentagon to slash its budget by $400 billion. This, of course, came in addition to the $400 billion in cuts he had already imposed.”
And yet you never see Obama standing on the steps of the Department of Energy or the Department of Education and demand that the same cuts be made to those agencies. Hmmmm, I wonder why? And why are not people in the military considered by this president to be just as valuable as firemen or policemen? You never, EVER, hear Obama propose cutting police or firemen. Well, aren’t people in the military just as important when it comes to defending this nation as the police or firemen? Yet you never hear Obama demand that major Federal subsidies for police, firemen, or teachers be cut in this new budget. So why is that?
Unions. Obama and the Democrats get lots of money from the teachers, police, and firemen’s unions that go to fund his slimy billion-dollar campaign. But our men and women in uniform have no union, only their duty, and most of their votes are not even counted in Democratic states because most of these people have to vote with absentee ballots. Why do you think organizations like ACORN don’t WANT Democratic states to count absentee ballots, especially those from military personnel? Because they know the Democrats would probably lose. So with no unions and no votes, Obama can afford to cut the military as much as he likes. That’s why you’ll never hear him demand that big cuts be made to teachers, firemen, or policemen. Obama will not rest until this country is just like France, one big, bloated, Federal bureaucracy that never met a union it didn’t like.
Time to stop this madness now, if for anything else just to help our men and women in the military. Vote Republican in November and at least give these fine people in our military the tools they need to defend our nation properly and don’t take us back to the way the military was in the late 1930s, just before we were attacked at Pearl Harbor.
The U.S. has basically supplied the military to the free world, allowing other countries to proceed at pace in adopting social welfare policies. Recall how weak NATO looked in the action against Libya. Reductions in our military spending will have very far-reaching effects. For all the hype, Obama is just another garden variety liberal, albeit a fairly extreme one. Cut military spending, increase social welfare programs, increase the size of government, create more debt, and make the tax structure more progressive. There’s nothing new under the sun.
Look I will agree that progressives constantly want defense cuts without touching any domestic spending, and that domestic spending does need to be brought to bear. So does defense spending. The military wastes ungodly sums of money on crap. Asking them to tighten the belt is not a bad thing. and saying that they are going to slow the growth of the defense budget is not a terrible idea. The military is bloated with worthless personell pilfering government money because they needed bodies. Now they are going to start working to shed the dead weight and keep the best personell. Defense Cuts is one of those things that gets a nice knee jerk reaction from conservatives, but once again, there are no “Defense Cuts” That would imply that the military would be getting less money next year than it did this year, and that is simply not the case.
The US needs to formally withdraw from NATO and move its Europe-based forces back to the US except for our naval bases in the Mediterranean. Europe is under no military threat from anyone. It’s time we made them assume 100% of the costs of their national defenses. Heck, it would actually be good for them because having primary responsibility for their defense would cripple their welfare state culture. As for our “allies” in the Middle East, they’ve contracted out to buy about $100 billion worth of new hardware and training, the vast majority of which is American-made. They’re being responsible and putting their oil dollars into protecting themselves in a serious way now.
That’s what we need to encourage. The US has a military industrial complex capable of putting equipment into our allies hands that would give their enemies a preview of the wrath of God if unleashed on them. We should be offering to sell top of the line naval hardware to our asian allies as we draw down as well.
I agree with you for the most part, but I do think we need to keep Ramstein and Landstuhl open as well. They provide a strategic jumping point for military operations throughout Europe and the middle east. I honestly think keeping just enough bases open world wide to allow us to strike anywhere at a moments notice is the best strategy. That does not require 900 bases world wide. Like the 82nd says “any where in the world in 18 hrs”
I should also point out that the F35′s development was crippled by the USMC. You can thank the Marines for insisting that their VTOL needs be considered a primary requirement, rather than letting the F35 go into production first and then figure out how to make VTOL work. We’ve done stuff like that all the time in the past–most of our current production aircraft are the result of years of modifications based on utilizing actual performance data to tweak the designs.
The F-35B is not just for the Marines. Originally, the UK was going to buy a lot of them for their new carriers, but they switched to the more capable “C” version last year. There is still a demand for the “B” version internationally. Spain and Italy need to replace the Harriers on their carriers soon. Australia and Japan both have smaller flat tops coming online that could handle the “B” version.
Many of the F-35 delays and cost overruns trace back to the contractor, Lockheed-Martin (AKA “Overruns R Us”). The fact is that the Marines need the STOVL (short takeoff, vertical landing) version of the F-35 and it’s completely reasonable for them to insist their needs be met. LM did it’s usual con-job of lowballing the price estimate and making it up on cost-plus contracts. They did the same thing with the F-22, AEHF and SBIRS satellites and it’s a common business practice there. Over-promise, under deliver and stick the taxpayers with the tab is how they do business.
Honestly if you really wanted to save money, combine air force and navy. As they are both primarily tech services, and separate the medical personnell from each branch and have a military medical corps. Stop letting marines have their own air power. I know lots of these ideas will get huge backlash, but seriously, the military is incredibly wasteful, and in need of serious restructuring and clearly defined mission boundaries.
We need to close our overseas bases. South Korea is more than capable of dealing with it’s codpiece polishing northern neighbor. The Soviets aren’t exactly waiting with 50,000+ T-72s to sweep into eastern Europe, and the last time I saw an East German uniform was in a military surplus shop (cheap and great for collecting, BTW). With as strong as neo cons like say Israel is, then I say: LET THEM TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES.
We have our own issues. It’s time that the rest of the world pulled up their ‘big boy’ pants and got along without us having to change their diapers.
I agree but the only candidate that will do that is Ron Paul.
Agreed
Good points made in the comments, get out of NATO (I say UN as well), combined command structure for Navy/AF (I say one unified defense command, end all service rivalries and duplications), leave foreign bases.
The one thing missing is the need to publicly, irrevocably, proclaim our intent to maintain and if necessary use the nuclear deterrent. That alone makes an ultimately smaller military practical.
Now, match the military cuts with welfare cuts and dissolution of complete government departments like energy, education, and HUD, and we could make some real progress.
No real progress can be made until we make big cuts to SS and Medicare.
We have two oceans protecting us, the ideological death of the one alternative to capitalism that the developing world found somewhat captivating, and our major potential adversaries (China, Iran) are run by dictatorships that need to sell their products to us in order to feed their own people. There is no reason for the U.S. to have a military that is ten times more powerful than any other nations. We can do just fine with a military that is five times more powerful.
Americans are sick of war, and a growing minority of conservatives and independents are going to be joining with the Democrats on this issue. Neoconservativism and Wilsonian internationalism are becoming less appealing to a nation of exhausted taxpayers.
Oh, and let the Israelis deal with their enemies themselves. They are more than capable.
The big problem is that the US is not letting the Israelis deal with their problems. It is always jumping and trying to dictate the outcome. 1973 when the Israelis started kicking the Egyptian and Syrian a**es Kissinger made them stop.
Gaza, Obama made them stop. The last Lebanon war the entire world made them stop. If you left everything alone without outside interference, the situation would resolve itself within a month.
Absolutely! The world (including the US) needs to mind its own damn business. The Iraeli’s are fully capable of defending themselves from any agressor in the region. I say let them handle their business. Another humiliating ass kicking by Israel ought to shut up their neighbors, and if they want to send cruise missiles into Iran and blow up some neuclear sites, fine. Seriously what can the Iranians do without the UN to prop them up.
nuclear
The American voters, over time, get what they deserve. Our choices in November are clear. We are broke. Our kids can not pay off the debt we have accrued; it will take our grand kids to do this. As noted in the comments, our military has poured oceans of money on problems with little result. Those days are gone forever. Some hard choices must be made, Americans must decide:
Will we risk being conquered?
There are national leaders who enjoy rape, murder, and conquest. Do we accept that war kills people, and is necessary?
Do we accept that those dead bodies are not just our military’s responsibility; they are our responsibility?
There are two types of peace: the relationship between equals, or standing over the grave of your enemy. Do we accept this truth?
How much are we willing to pay to stay alive? Kept our kid alive in combat?
Our allies have hidden under the eagle since the 1940s. If Iran explodes a nuke in anger, it will melt an ally’s city. The US paid for ~ 70% of the munitions dropped on Libya, our allies ran out of weapons. Kuwaitis are not extinct because of the US military. They extract oil from their dirt for ~ $3/ barrel. When will our allies pay to stay alive?
When will we demand cost effective decisions from an organization with very few warriors, and oceans of bureaucrats? Statistically, they are not a martial society.
We desperately need a tough decision-making boss. Do we have one? Who is he?
Defense Spending http://bit.ly/hNKDG6
900 bases in 130+ countries
most managed by KBR of Halliburton fame
the $20 a plate people
Cost Of War http://bit.ly/eaGXTP
World Military Spending http://bit.ly/3MRsP0
U.S. Spends More than Next Top 14 Countries Combined
http://bit.ly/s0vwzo
Wiki List of countries by military expenditures
http://bit.ly/dRAFp9
Not our job to police the world. We should have been out of Afghanistan the day after we got bin laden.
Honestly, we shouldn’t have even stayed long enough for the fires to go out. We should have blown the country up and left a clear warning that screwing with us again would bring a repeat performance. If they want democracy they can earn it the hard way, with their own effort and blood.
The US is broke….
…..But the threat from Iran and China and
The US is broke….
…..But what about social security, the poor and the elderly
The US is broke….
….but
The US is broke.
Jacob makes the best points (#s 1, 4, 7). The military budget is NOT being cut by Obama’s defense proposal. The rate of growth in the budget IS being slowed. Another fact is that Congress gave the Pres around $10-15 billion than was requested; I assume that in part is the Tea Party in action.
It’s gratifying that some Tea Partiers actually “get it” and aren’t falling for the propaganda coming from the defense industry.
That’s $10-15 billion LESS than was requested………
The problem, in all honesty, is the military itself. Its become incredibly top heavy and bureaucratic. It is incredibly difficult to create any effective systematic change. Rather than take the budget and try to adjust fire to make changes that will allow them to stay mission capapble, they decide to gut themselves. Be certain when the military is stripped down, its not because they didn’t have the money, its because they refused to use the money they have effectively.
I remember Reagan and what happened then. The country was going broke because of super inflation. Iran held our diplomatic staff prisoner. As soon as Reagan was elected, the diplomatic staff was released. Reagan unfettered the power of a free economy and inflation was broken. He also rearmed America and gave it back its power. This administration wants to do everything in reverse. We now have an avalanche of government regulations telling us what we can’t do and everything is a can’t do. The ecoextremeists have made it impossible to develop anything on our coastline, the deserts are too fragile, water is for fish only not for farming, still we have to cut back on our emissions because China is emitting too much. We fund Brazilian oil exploration while we ban it here. We block Canadian oil from pipelines so that we can buy more of it from the Saudis. Our borders are open and if that’s not enough the UN gets to dictate who has refugee status and may come to this country. I think I’ll go out and make myself an outhouse just because I don’t want to pollute the good water of this State. Now if I can only figure out a way to recycle the sh*t, I’ll make everybody happy.
Didn’t Jimmy Carter try this already?
The point of a strong defense is to deter war, and only failing that, to fight and wins wars. Obviously deterence is a matter of perception by those who wish us harm. If our enemies sense a faltering resolve, they will be emboldened to take action – witness Iran’s aggressive response to Obama’s “open hand”.
And the costs of fighting wars are extremely higher than the costs of maintaining what is perceived as a more than capable deterent.
$687,105,000,000 USA
$114,300,000,000 China
$61,285,000,000 France
$7,044,000,000 Iran
Military expenditures 2010.
So the military budget cuts hobble allies, embolden enemies? From the numbers here, which I discovered by Googling for 20 seconds worth of effort, prove that the headline for this article is a new kind of joke ,right?
Actually the joke is all the chairborn commandos who think they know what the military needs so they can just cut away, a little here a little there. Tell us about the next war, oh wise ones, so we know exactly how much to spend and what to spend it on. If you can’t do that then I suggest you join the military so you can go risk your lives with second rate equipment. Retired veteran.