NRO: Obama’s indefensible cuts

MP at Fort Sheridan

President Obama's downsizing of American goes beyond our economy. In an op-ed, National Review Online explains:

In outlining his new defense strategy yesterday, President Obama became the first commander-in-chief to speak from the Pentagon’s pressroom. Unfortunately, he used the occasion to introduce nearly $500 billion in cuts that are likely to weaken the national security of the United States.

The president's remarks, as well those of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, contained much vague talk of a "smarter," more "agile" military that would "evolve" to find new ways to meet its existing commitments in Europe and the Middle East, along with a reaffirmation — all but offered as consolation — that we will be enlarging our footprint in Asia. But behind the euphemistic vocabulary and the strategic veneer is a simple truth: This is a retreat.

The problem with America's warriors is not that they aren't technologically sophisticated enough, but that there are too few of them. And yet the president's plan would reduce the size of the Army and Marine Corps by a combined 10–15 percent, taking force levels back to roughly where they were at the end of the Clinton administration. The president calls this retrenchment 'turning the page on a decade of war," and he says more than he knows. For the move is proof that the administration has learned nothing from the 9/11 decade.

Our combat mission in Iraq may be over, but the peace is fragile and violence continues. In Afghanistan an accelerated withdrawal and negotiated peace with the Taliban is likely to create more national-security threats than it dispatches. The Arab world remains one giant powder keg, and the potential for new threats from a destabilized North Korea, a radicalized Pakistan, a nuclear Iran, and even a suddenly unpredictable Russia are too manifold — and too fearsome — to contemplate. So while our part in the fighting may be drawing down for the moment, the volatile mix of geopolitical conditions that made that fighting necessary remains.

Technorati tags: politics freedom War on Terror patriotism armed forces military