The Obama Defense Strategy Is To Have Less Defense
Posted 02/14/2012 05:53 PM ET
The
budget that President Obama unveiled on Monday does its best to conceal
the magnitude and implications of his plans for our military. But the
cumulative effect of the spending cuts it does specify, together with
those that are statutorily required but as yet unacknowledged, is
unmistakable:
The U.S. military's might will be transformed from that of, and befitting, a global superpower to that of just another cash-strapped, if glorified, regional power.
This is not an accident; it is by design. The evidence of Mr. Obama's true intentions towards our armed forces and their ability, on behalf of the nation, to project power is all over the just-released 2013 budget.
Let's start with what Mr. Obama has described as his new "defense strategy" — a blueprint for the armed forces that supposedly justifies cutting at least another $487 billion from Pentagon accounts. In fact, that strategy is purely a budget-driven exercise: We are being told what we can afford and then what we will do with that amount.
What he thinks we can afford in the way of national security capabilities bears a surprising resemblance to what hard experience has branded as a "hollow military." That is, the sort of force we have been left with in the past when successive presidents thought we could safely cash in "peace dividends" in the wake of victories or, at least, when serious security threats had receded.
Typically, such a military is too small, especially if threats are growing, not extinguished. It is equipped with too few ships, planes and ground combat vehicles. And most of those are aging, if not obsolescent. Such a force is difficult to motivate and maintain. But more importantly, history teaches that it has repeatedly proven to be inadequate to deter our enemies.
The administration tries to dress up the hollowing out of the military with talk about a "pivot" toward the Far East. This is less a transformation than a bait-and-switch.
For the foreseeable future, we cannot safely move forces to the other side of the world from the Mideast. In fact, we may even need more there, depending on what happens in the next few months with respect to Iran's threats to the Persian Gulf, its nuclear ambitions, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, civil war in Syria and the threats all of these pose to our vital interests and our ally, Israel.
Even if we do disengage substantially from the Middle East to concentrate on China, does anyone really believe that the transformed Obama strategy, which will only allow for one-conflict-at-a-time strategy, won't invite Iranian or other aggression while we are confronting the Chinese? Apart from America's enemies, is that the kind of "change" anybody is hoping for?
Matters would be made infinitely worse, of course, if the real size of the defense cuts were reflected in the new Obama defense budget. Instead of $487 billion eliminated over the next 10 years, current law requires more than twice that amount to be excised.
The official line is that the Pentagon is expecting that so-called "sequestration" requirement to be satisfied with other revenues — notably by new taxes on people earning more than $250,000. But if that politically fraught option is not exercised by Congress in an election year, and if the president stands by his threat to veto any other relief, the Defense Department is statutorily required to come up with another half a trillion dollars.
Mr. Obama's own defense secretary, Leon Panetta, has said that that would be a "disaster," akin to "shooting ourselves in the head" and that even the new, regional power strategy would have to go "back to the drawing board."
This makes it astounding, not to say scandalous, that the true extent of the devastating transformation to the national security now in the works is not being disclosed by what candidate Barack Obama promised would be "the most transparent administration in history."
What is transparent about the president's defense program is that it involves what he considers to be undesirable employment and industries, not the kinds he favors.
So 100,000 troops and Marines will be forced out of uniform, a million jobs may be lost in the defense sector and businesses doing vital work for the national security may have to close because they didn't happen to involve "shovel-ready" transportation jobs, green energy or other favored activities.
We simply cannot afford this sort of transformation — and the dangerous world into which it will plunge us, wholly unprepared.
• Gaffney acted as an assistant secretary in the Reagan defense department. He is currently president of the Center for Security Policy.
The U.S. military's might will be transformed from that of, and befitting, a global superpower to that of just another cash-strapped, if glorified, regional power.
This is not an accident; it is by design. The evidence of Mr. Obama's true intentions towards our armed forces and their ability, on behalf of the nation, to project power is all over the just-released 2013 budget.
Let's start with what Mr. Obama has described as his new "defense strategy" — a blueprint for the armed forces that supposedly justifies cutting at least another $487 billion from Pentagon accounts. In fact, that strategy is purely a budget-driven exercise: We are being told what we can afford and then what we will do with that amount.
What he thinks we can afford in the way of national security capabilities bears a surprising resemblance to what hard experience has branded as a "hollow military." That is, the sort of force we have been left with in the past when successive presidents thought we could safely cash in "peace dividends" in the wake of victories or, at least, when serious security threats had receded.
Typically, such a military is too small, especially if threats are growing, not extinguished. It is equipped with too few ships, planes and ground combat vehicles. And most of those are aging, if not obsolescent. Such a force is difficult to motivate and maintain. But more importantly, history teaches that it has repeatedly proven to be inadequate to deter our enemies.
The administration tries to dress up the hollowing out of the military with talk about a "pivot" toward the Far East. This is less a transformation than a bait-and-switch.
For the foreseeable future, we cannot safely move forces to the other side of the world from the Mideast. In fact, we may even need more there, depending on what happens in the next few months with respect to Iran's threats to the Persian Gulf, its nuclear ambitions, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, civil war in Syria and the threats all of these pose to our vital interests and our ally, Israel.
Even if we do disengage substantially from the Middle East to concentrate on China, does anyone really believe that the transformed Obama strategy, which will only allow for one-conflict-at-a-time strategy, won't invite Iranian or other aggression while we are confronting the Chinese? Apart from America's enemies, is that the kind of "change" anybody is hoping for?
Matters would be made infinitely worse, of course, if the real size of the defense cuts were reflected in the new Obama defense budget. Instead of $487 billion eliminated over the next 10 years, current law requires more than twice that amount to be excised.
The official line is that the Pentagon is expecting that so-called "sequestration" requirement to be satisfied with other revenues — notably by new taxes on people earning more than $250,000. But if that politically fraught option is not exercised by Congress in an election year, and if the president stands by his threat to veto any other relief, the Defense Department is statutorily required to come up with another half a trillion dollars.
Mr. Obama's own defense secretary, Leon Panetta, has said that that would be a "disaster," akin to "shooting ourselves in the head" and that even the new, regional power strategy would have to go "back to the drawing board."
This makes it astounding, not to say scandalous, that the true extent of the devastating transformation to the national security now in the works is not being disclosed by what candidate Barack Obama promised would be "the most transparent administration in history."
What is transparent about the president's defense program is that it involves what he considers to be undesirable employment and industries, not the kinds he favors.
So 100,000 troops and Marines will be forced out of uniform, a million jobs may be lost in the defense sector and businesses doing vital work for the national security may have to close because they didn't happen to involve "shovel-ready" transportation jobs, green energy or other favored activities.
We simply cannot afford this sort of transformation — and the dangerous world into which it will plunge us, wholly unprepared.
• Gaffney acted as an assistant secretary in the Reagan defense department. He is currently president of the Center for Security Policy.
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