It would be hard to imagine a more likely spot to find savings in the federal budget than the military.
Now that President Barack Obama has proposed hundreds of billions in cuts, national defense hawks will stew over the implications.
Conservatives have been urging spending cuts, but many, perhaps most, will oppose focusing on the military and will find fault merely because the plan is proposed by this president.
Announcing his plan, Obama explained the cuts will not damage the nation’s national defense or military readiness.
“Our military will be leaner,” but he said we will maintain our military superiority, defending against terrorism with a “more agile” force.
As most of you might have surmised, I have been invited to very few secret Pentagon planning sessions, but even bucolic outsiders can see the steady growth in military muscle required by recent “long wars,” to use the official description.
Defense cutbacks will reduce our capacity to fight two separate wars at once but, according to the plan, will retain plenty of ability to stand guard.
Surely we can pare back expensive installations around the world.
Host nations might oppose these reductions as much for reasons of economics as security.
U.S. military installations are huge boosts to local economies.
Scaling back the military will boost unemployment, but this is the usual contradiction facing those who argue for cutting the size of government.
Many who want smaller government will not want to make this particular cut, a common refrain heard every time public spending is to be reduced in any way at all.
The politics of spending control aside, it makes sense to do careful downsizing of the military.
Advancing technology has changed the nature of foreign threats.
Subversive terrorism replaces vast attacks with tanks and battleships.
To the degree such heavy artillery still has a role, the United States can maintain overwhelming superiority without such overkill.
Nuclear threats are worrisome but don’t require hundreds of thousands of troops ready to deploy.
We’ll be better to concentrate on SEALS and the CIA rather than armies of grunts.
Surely we can reduce military spending while continuing to improve our defense capability.
Obama & Co. are off on the right foot.
The labyrinthine military command contains plenty of expert partisans who will argue for keeping their branches strong.
Avoiding wasteful spending will remain perhaps the most intractable challenge of all.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jan/07/the-military/
