The defense sequester was the worst possible thing to do to the military, at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way. Coming on the heels of the reductions from 2009–2011, it has resulted in large cuts to the Pentagon accounts that support day-to-day readiness. The Navy is routinely cancelling deployments. Earlier this spring, the Air Force grounded one-third of its fighters and bombers. The Army has curtailed training for 80 percent of the force. Our strategic arsenal—the final line of national self-defense—is old, shrinking, and largely untested. All this is happening at a time when the recognized threats to America—from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, the inaptly named “Arab Spring,” and a resurgent and spreading al-Qaeda—are manifestly rising.
Then in 2011 a President was in power who questioned the efficacy and even legitimacy of American power, and a Congress panicked by the specter of rising deficits came to power. Without a clear understanding of why defense was important, they gave way to the assumption that it was only one in a set of competing priorities. The gradual decline in American power became an unprecedented rush to reduce the defense budget, with little long-term analysis of the impact on military strategy or national security.
“Peace through strength,” the cardinal and bipartisan principle of American politics since World War II has all but collapsed. So has the “Reaganite” corollary, which had remained the nucleus of the larger consensus coalition. For generations, leaders of both parties agreed: American strength was a good thing, and the first purpose of the federal government. If there is any bipartisan agreement now, it is that defense spending can and should be reduced.
The problem is that America’s leaders never explicitly adapted the strategy to the circumstances of the post–Cold War world. Yet mitigation of global risk is even more important today than it was during the Cold War years. The information revolution has knitted the world together both socially and economically in an unprecedented way; what happens in the Middle East, Southern Asia, and even Africa matters directly to America’s security and quality of life. At the same time, asymmetric capabilities, further enhanced by the information revolution, have increased the direct threats to the American homeland. Nuclear weapons are easier to develop, and cyber weapons and bioweapons are available even to nascent radical movements, much less nation-states.
North Korea, an economic basket case, is already a major threat to its neighbors, and will become a direct threat to the American homeland if it continues to improve its missile capabilities. China’s claims to the South China Sea threaten sea lanes through which much of the world’s shipping must travel, and China is already regularly attacking the American economy through cyberspace. If the Pakistani government becomes unstable, or is taken over by Islamists, the danger of war with India will grow, and Pakistan’s substantial nuclear arsenal will be up for grabs. Iran, the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism, is approaching nuclear capability. The fact that Egypt is now in turmoil has further isolated Israel and increased the danger of war in the Middle East. Yemen’s failed government means that the country may become a staging ground for terrorism. Al-Qaeda has not been defeated; it has returned to Iraq, spread to North Africa and Yemen, and is now run by Ayman al-Zawahiri, a medical doctor who was in charge of bioweapons laboratories that were operating in Afghanistan before the American invasion.
The U.S. Navy is the smallest it has been since 1916. The Air Force is smaller than at any time since the inception of the service. Today, the Administration is planning to reduce the number of soldiers and Marines by 100,000, despite the fact that the war in Afghanistan will continue through 2014. The Administration’s missile defense plans are in disarray, as is America’s national nuclear infrastructure.
Believe it or not, my post is a mere excerpt of the paper written by Talent and Kyle. They go on to write about the threats of Islamist movements, China, The Iranian nuclear program, the Arab Spring, and the growing isolation of Israel, increasing competition for resources, and the number of nations that are weak and growing weaker. They end by making suggestions about how to rectify the problems outlined above.
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