Representative Edward Markey (D–MA) has grave misconceptions regarding contributions that nuclear weapons make to the U.S. and allied national security. On Wednesday, he introduced a bill that would cut $100 billion in nuclear weapons programs. This bill is co-sponsored by 34 other Representatives. Not only would such cuts be disastrous for the already under-funded U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure; they would also call into question U.S. commitment to extended deterrence and viability of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation. In addition, the proposed cuts would …
In a recent report titled “A Historical Perspective on ‘Hollow Forces,’” the Congressional Research Service (CRS) surveyed past efforts to keep the military from going “hollow.” The CRS is spot on in bringing attention to the issue. We need to look for the warning signs that budget cuts are leaving us with a military that is not up to the job of defending us. But rather than getting bogged down over academic definitions of hollowness, we need to focus on objective measures that America’s armed forces are becoming less capable. …
Since the May 2, 2011, Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, President Obama has lauded the mission’s success and championed U.S. Special Forces as a major component of future military operations. Both Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta have stressed that, as conventional forces draw down in Iraq and Afghanistan, special operations units will become an increasingly significant component of America’s national security strategy. However, the relationship between conventional and nonconventional forces is not so simple. The President makes the assumption that lowering the number of active-duty …
The Department of Defense’s recently released budget is based on a hope that the international environment has structurally changed and that the United States will never again face the obligation of fighting two major wars simultaneously, according to the most recent publication by the Defending Defense Coalition of the American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Initiative, and The Heritage Foundation. As a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), the military budget will be slashed by at least $487 billion the over the next 10 years. This is a …
The future is not bright for the U.S. military. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave America a glimpse of the half-trillion dollars in defense spending cuts requested by the Obama Administration and detailed how the U.S. military’s capabilities would be affected in practical terms. The result is a slashed and burned military that woefully lacks the forces it needs to meet America’s security challenges on a global scale. On the ground, in the sea, and in the air, American forces will shrink drastically — the Army will shrink by 72,000 …
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today laid out details of a plan to cut a half a trillion dollars from defense spending. That’s in addition to the half-trillion in cuts required under the Budget Control Act. The Wall Street Journal reports that, as part of the plan to cope with funding cuts and reduced troop levels, the U.S. military plans to increase the U.S. fleet of unmanned drones by 30 percent and increasingly rely on special-operations teams based around the globe. Unfortunately, that won’t be sufficient to manage America’s defense needs. …
A recent article by the Associated Press leaves the reader with the impression that there haven’t been any defense cuts since the 1990s and that defense spending has not been “on the table” in recent deficit-reduction efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth. The article states that the cuts to defense under the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, beginning in 2013, are “the first outright cuts since the so-called peace dividend of the early 1990s.” In reality, defense budgets have already been cut, are being cut now, and …
As one of the 12 members of Congress on the Super Committee, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) had a front row seat for all the negotiations. Since the committee’s announcement late last month that they had failed to reach a deal on at least $1.5 trillion in savings, Toomey has been very vocal that we cannot now ignore our nation’s fiscal crisis and that a deal still much be reached. He visited Heritage this week to discuss the fallout. We caught up with him in his Senate offices to discuss what happened and …
The Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute host a Republican presidential debate on CNN this Tuesday at 8 p.m. on the subjects of foreign policy and national security. At a time when domestic issues dominate the headlines, Tuesday’s debate offers an opportunity to refocus our attention on matters of constitutional significance. The Founding Fathers spelled out in the U.S. Constitution that the federal government must provide for the common defense. Yet defense spending has fallen below its 45-year historical average. It is projected to drop to 3.4 percent of gross …
The U.S. military has already contributed more to debt and deficit reduction than any other federal agency. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R–OH), recently sent a clear message to the congressional “super committee” charged with producing additional debt reduction plans: The defense budget has already coughed up enough. Noting—correctly—that members of the military have “taken more than their fair share of the hits” this year alone, Speaker Boehner urged politicians to look elsewhere for savings. This is a welcome acknowledgement by leadership to the entire House of Representatives that …
