OBAMALATERAL DISARMAMENT DOOMS ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY
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National Security: Portrayed as just a shuffling of priorities, the president’s defense cuts reduce our two-war strategy to maybe one war and cross your fingers. Champagne corks are popping from Beijing to Tehran.
Imagine a scenario in the not-too-distant future when an Iranian Shahab missile mated with an unexpectedly ready nuclear warhead is test-fired and detonates somewhere over the Indian Ocean. The next day Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz as China announces a blockade of Taiwan.
The administration’s defense cuts, or shifts in priorities as President Obama would have us believe, leaves us woefully unprepared for the unexpected in which our enemies, current and potential, are not disarming or cutting their military budgets. Certainly not China, which has been increasing its military spending by double-digit percentages for the last decade.
“We will be strengthening our presence in the Asia-Pacific,” Obama said, “and budget reductions will not come at the expense of that critical region.”
If creating a counterweight to an expansionist China is our goal, why aren’t we selling superior F-22 Raptors to Japan — not to mention building more for ourselves — and selling F-16s to Taiwan?
This defensive retreat will of necessity come at the expense of other regions. We used to have a two-ocean Navy and a military capable of fighting and winning two full-blown wars. We no longer have that ability and will be reduced to plugging holes in the dike while not having enough fingers.
China’s response to Obama’s announcement was hardly reassuring. “China should come up with countermeasures,” the nation’s Communist Party-affiliated Global Times said. “It should strengthen its long-range strike abilities and put more deterrence on the U.S. The U.S. must realize that it cannot stop the rise of China and that being friendly to China is in its utmost interests.”
This was said as China’s first aircraft carrier undergoes sea trials.
Subscribe to the IBD Editorials PodcastThe editorial also warned that China might form some kind of alliance with Iran. “The U.S. strategic adjustment highlights Iran’s importance to China. Iran’s existence and its stance form a strong check against the U.S.,” the paper said. “China should not treat Iran following U.S. cultural, social and political values.” The axis of evil just got bigger.
We have an unstable North Korea run by an inexperienced boy-man made general, the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, an increasingly endangered Israel, an imminent nuclear power in Iran and an increasingly unfriendly and fragile Pakistan to deal with, and that’s just for starters. All the president can say is that we’re “turning a page on a decade of war” in Iraq and Afghanistan, ignoring the vacuums Iran and the Taliban hope to fill. Peace in our time it is not.
We will now continue to speak softly but carry a smaller stick. Forget about boots on the ground. We will now send in the drones instead of the Marines. The president’s plan would reduce the size of the Army and Marine Corps by a combined 10%-15%, meaning an eventual loss of 76,000 to 114,000 troops, taking force levels back to roughly where they were at the end of the Clinton administration.
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