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Jewish World Review Jan 10, 2012/ 15 Teves, 5772 'Leaner' is an adjective more appropriately applied to cutting fat, not muscle By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
A weaker America is a stronger America, President Barack Obama said last week in unveiling his new defense strategy.
Mr. Obama didn't use those words. But that's the effect of his plans to cut more than 100,000 troops from the Army and Marine Corps; reduce the Navy from 300 to 238 ships; cut Air Force strategic bombers by a third, and Air Force fighters by half.
Our military will be "leaner," the president said. "Leaner" is an adjective more appropriately applied to cutting fat, not muscle.
Mr. Obama has reduced spending for defense by $480 billion since he assumed office. The cuts he previewed last week would reduce defense spending over the next ten years by $487 billion more.
The cuts are necessary, the president said, because of our mammoth federal budget deficits. But defense can't be responsible for the $1.5 trillion he's added to the national debt, since he already has cut so much from the defense budget.
The failed $821 billion stimulus cost as much as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Spending for defense is mandated by the Constitution. Providing pork to political cronies is not.
Cutting defense spending this much would make our economic problems worse. In addition to the loss of more than 100,000 military jobs, the cuts would reduce civilian defense jobs by about 200,000, and employment in defense industries by about 500,000, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee estimated.
And if the defense cuts that may be triggered by the failure of the House-Senate "supercommittee" to approve a deficit reduction package also go into effect, job losses could rise to 1.5 million, said Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Ca. Mr. Obama did not say whether those "sequestration" cuts are figured into the cuts he announced last week.
Unlike the handful of "green" jobs on which Mr. Obama has spent so much, these jobs are necessary, and soon may become more so. As we enter 2012, the war clouds are thicker and darker than at any time since 1938. (For you history challenged liberals, that was the year before World War II began.)
In an editorial Friday (1/6) praising Mr. Obama's defense cuts, the New York Times had this cautionary paragraph:
"Still, the United States must be ready to face multiple contingencies. Our own chilling list includes a collapsing Pakistan, another state hjacked by al Qaida, Iran blocking oil shipments as it pursues its nuclear ambitions or a weak or unbalanced North Korean leader making a suicidal run across the South Korean border."
This paragraph makes the editorial self-refuting, said Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations.
"How, pray tell, is the U.S. supposed to get ready for all these possible contingencies -- much less for the prospect of more than one occurring at once -- if the defense budget stands to be cut by as much as a trillion dollars during the next decade?" he asked.
"It's impossible," Mr. Boot said. "Means don't match ends. Resources are insufficient to safeguard against all these risks in a credible and convincing manner."
And to the Times' list should be added the rising possibility of a clash with China over Taiwan or in the South China Sea. China has massively increased its military spending.
Islamists ascendant in Egypt plan to renounce the peace treaty with Israel. Once staunch ally Turkey is moving into the Islamist camp.
Mr. Obama's answer to these threats is to assume them away. His new strategy ends the "two war planning construct" that for decades has been the core of Pentagon strategy. Mr. Obama assumes we won't get involved in another ground war like Iraq or Afghanistan.
But that's mostly not up to us. President Bush wasn't planning to fight ground wars either. Then came 9/11.
Voters may be swayed by fatuous assumptions from our political leaders, but our enemies are not. There are two fundamental truths about defense we must keep foremost in mind.
It costs much less to deter war than to fight one.
Weakness is provocative. When tyrants believe we lack the means or the will to oppose them, they become more aggressive.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought he'd obtained "peace in our time" in 1938 when he sold out Czechoslovakia at Munich. What he'd actually done was invite the bloodiest war in history.
Let's pray Mr. Obama doesn't also learn these truths the hard way.
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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
© 2011, Jack Kelly |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
