Great Power No More?

Forwarded by a friend.  From the Washington Post:

New York Post


May 17, 2010

Great Power No More?



Obama's coming defense cuts



By Arthur Herman



It seems Barack Obama has a new presidential role model, at least as far as national defense is concerned: Dwight Eisenhower. But the Ike that Obama likes isn't the easy-going golfing geezer -- and certainly not the grim Cold Warrior who promised massive nuclear retaliation on the enemy if they started any serious trouble.



No, this is the Ike who slashed America's defense budget by more than a quarter after the Korean War, and who, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, was willing to "make hard choices" about where American military might should be used, and where it shouldn't.



That was the message Gates conveyed in a May 8 speech at the Eisenhower Library on the future of America's national defense -- echoing Obama's own praise for Ike at West Point Dec. 1.



To the Obama team, the Eisenhower years represent an America aware of its strategic limits and willing to just say "no" to more money for the Pentagon. "The gusher" of post-9/11 military spending is going to be shut off, Gates announced, for "a good period of time."



The fact is, America is being set up for a sharp decline in our ability to project military force and protect vital interests. In that vein, Gates mentioned Ike more than a dozen times -- and Ronald Reagan not once.



Our nation's soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors know how to take orders and salute. The problem audience here is America's enemies, present and future.



The Navy is down to its lowest number of vessels since the Carter years. The next generation of destroyers has been cut from a planned 32 ships to 3. The F-22 Raptor advanced-fighter program will soon be as extinct as the dinosaur it's named after. We're already planning to peel out of Iraq and Afghanistan; the jihadists have the dates marked on their calendars.



Evoking the name of America's greatest soldier-president since George Washington won't cover the fact that the new "Ike" approach looks like a formula for America's demise as a great power.



Five days before the Eisenhower speech, Gates spoke at the Navy League conference in DC. According to one eyewitness, you could've heard a pin drop among the assembled ex-sailors and navy contractors as Gates announced that "we simply can't afford to perpetuate a status quo" of 11 aircraft carriers and 57 nuclear submarines.



This is the Obama Pentagon Two-Step. Last year, we had the cuts in specific military programs, including the Raptor. This year, with deficits soaring thanks to Obama's gusher of domestic outlays, will come the actual cuts in spending -- including mothballing ships, shutting down bases, reducing the number of officers and trimming raises and health benefits for service personnel.



It is important to realize this is not the result of rethinking our defense priorities, as Gates and his supporters like to insist. Of course the Pentagon could use some cost-cutting; yes, certain weapons programs like the Littoral Combat Ship have involved a disgraceful waste of time and money. No one denies that we need to be ready to face the military challenges of the future, rather than the past.



But we just don't have the leisure to hit the "reset" button on our military. We're entangled in two major conflicts, Iraq and Afghanistan, involving every military service -- and may be unable to avoid others in the near future, including possibly Iran.



Yes, Eisenhower trimmed defense after Korea, much as Obama wants to do after Iraq. But even at their slimmest, Ike's defense outlays were 10 percent of GDP; we're at less than 4 percent today. By Ike's standards, our defense budget should be at least double the current $786 billion.



And Ike got "more bang for the buck" by putting his defense dollars into nuclear weapons, ready to be carpeted across Russia and East Europe by Air Force bombers if the Soviets made a major move. Red China, even Albania, were slated for annihilation whether combatants or not. That's hardly the kind of "balancing of strategic options" that Obama and Gates say they want -- or that our forces are capable of doing right now.



We've been here before. In the '70s under Jimmy Carter, and in the '90s under Bill Clinton, Democrats tried to cash in their peace dividends after Vietnam and the Cold War by cutting the Pentagon to pay for domestic spending. Carter's cuts yielded the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Soviet troops in Cuba. The Clinton-era cuts -- in the case of the Army, almost 40 percent -- left us gasping to catch up when Afghanistan and then Iraq beckoned.



The US fleet of aircraft carriers that Gates sees as "wasting assets" are in fact the guarantors of our great-power status and our strategic reach. The post-9/11 "gusher" of spending he refers to was actually the result of trying to make up for a decade of neglect -- almost certainly what a Republican president will have to do after Obama.



In fact, a revolt against the Obama-Gates crash diet is already starting in Congress. Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) is pushing for proscribed limits on how many Navy vessels can be retired before replacements must be ordered. And bigger resistance looms after November.



Gates certainly doesn't want to be remembered as the architect of America's military decline. Sadly, there may be some in the Obama White House who do.



Arthur Herman's most recent book is "Gandhi and Churchill. "