Then, even more remarkably, as increased federal spending on virtually all non-defence programmes remained the hallmark of Obama fiscal policy, defence budgets began suffering further enormous hits. If in the 2008 campaign Obama had openly proposed military spending reductions of the magnitude now being contemplated, Republican opposition would have been full-throated. Instead, after the Tea Party successes in the 2010 congressional elections, Obama used the cover of reducing expenditures, deficits and taxes generally to outwit and out-negotiate Republicans into military spending cuts that even his own Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, finds unacceptable.
Obama's policies and debilitating budget cuts reflect the views of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the nature of the threats that America and its allies will face in the near future. Proving yet again that generals tend to fight the last war, Gates and his aides concluded from Afghanistan and Iraq that future wars would most likely be counter-insurgency or counter-terrorist scenarios. No more Cold War-era spectres of Soviet-armoured thrusts through the Fulda Gap and over the northern European plains, or World War II-style armadas clashing at sea.
That future means de-emphasising "heavy" fighting requirements like armour, artillery and large infantry formations, as well as high-firepower air and naval platforms. Instead, stand-off weapons and assets like cruise missiles and drones, and light, quick special operations forces will be the new norm. Of course, this restructuring of the force also conveniently conforms to the smaller, less visible, less "aggressive" US military posture that suits the Obama Weltanschauung, so Gates was seamlessly kept on to serve in his Administration.
Unfortunately, virtually all of this, from the broad vision to the tactical details, is profoundly mistaken. Like the erroneous idea that the Cold War's end would bring a "peace dividend" that could be "spent" on domestic programmes without adverse security consequences, the idea that a second radical downsizing of US capabilities will avoid political and military effects is pernicious. Although Obama and his acolytes may want to escape unpleasant reality, force remains critical to national security. Using it, threatening to use it, being prepared to use it, or simply having it remain the sine qua non for a superpower with global interests, friends and allies. Obama might have been excused in his days in faculty lounges and the Illinois legislature for not grasping this correlation, but it is truly remarkable he has spent nearly three and a half years as President and still doesn't understand it.
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