Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Cost must not trump security
Kansas City Star: Several months ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that over the next five years he planned to carve $100 billion in savings out of the Pentagon budget. The goal: Maintain our existing force structure, despite the dismal fiscal outlook.
While that was certainly a worthy endeavor, now it looks as though the cutting will be much deeper, and that raises concerns. Gates says the fiscal situation is even more extreme today, requiring cuts of 47,000 in the troop levels of the Army and Marine Corps, beginning in 2015.
The Pentagon and Congress should proceed with extreme care. Combat operations have ceased in Iraq and our troops are slated to withdraw this year, but Afghanistan remains an active combat zone with unpredictable demands on Pentagon resources.
Worse, the announcement of these proposed cuts comes amid new reports of China’s rapid arms buildup, including its first stealth fighter, unveiled last week, and a new “carrier killer” ballistic missile. Beijing also has been building its own aircraft carriers.
Aviation Week reports that in recent war-gaming of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. side would lose even if the Chinese lost six warplanes for every one lost by our side. Too many Chinese jets would still get through.
Assuming China’s buildup continues its rapid pace as our retrenchment gains momentum, the deterrent value of our forces in the Western Pacific will decline — a result that could tempt Beijing to reach for an advantage in a crisis.
The point of a strong military is to keep the peace by removing that temptation. We have a massive deficit problem. And while making the Pentagon more efficient is a worthy endeavor, our deficit can’t be solved with excessive defense cuts that gamble with our future security.
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