America’s military is witnessing yet another attempt to recast the negative impact of massive defense cuts, this time in a report by the Council on Foreign Relations that attempts to illustrate the effect that slashed spending will have on U.S. forces and security. Unfortunately, the report uses some of the same ill-founded assumptions that the Obama Administration has made to justify cutting defense spending, thereby failing to paint an adequate picture of how U.S. military readiness will suffer under these new constraints. The council divides the military into “winners” and …
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently delivered a new report, “A Historical Perspective on ‘Hollow Forces.’” It is cold comfort to those who are really worried about the ability of our military to defend us. A military that looks good on paper but can’t adequately defend the country is the definition of a “hollow force.” A military force becomes hollow when it lacks sufficient capabilities to field trained and ready forces, conduct current missions, and prepare for future threats. If a military can’t do all three well, it is hollow—it …
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 …
Supporters of Ron Paul have re-launched an old ad promoting the old idea of American isolationism. “We now are a nation known to start war,” Paul is quoted as saying. “We feel compelled because of our insecurity that we have to go over and attack these countries to maintain our empire.” The message here (and repeated elsewhere) is that Paul’s isolationism is aligned with the Founding Fathers and “what is truly American and truly constitutional.” Not only is this refrain a gross misrepresentation of American history but it offers dangerously …
President Obama’s new national defense strategy is a budget-driven exercise masquerading as a strategic plan, writes Heritage’s Kim Holmes, former Assistant Secretary of State, in The Washington Times. In trotting out the new strategy, President Obama said the “tide of war is receding.” Accordingly, U.S. forces will “no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations” (read: Iraq). But is the tide of war receding on the world stage? And how does he know that the U.S. will not need to engage in another “stability operation”? The Army shed …
President Obama visited the Pentagon on Thursday to outline his plan for gutting our nation’s military. Obama’s vision makes America more vulnerable to foreign threats and leaves our armed forces less able to provide for the common defense. As we’ve previously illustrated, Obama has proposed significant reductions to the Pentagon’s budget. This week’s chart shows how sharply defense spending has dropped as a percentage of the total federal budget — currently well below its historical average despite ongoing operations overseas. The chart also debunks the myth that our Founding Fathers …
Yesterday at the Pentagon, President Obama offered up his revisionist view of the past three years of history in order to make the claim that the world is, thanks to him, a safer place, thereby justifying draconian cuts to the U.S. military. The trouble is, the vision he offers is full of holes. From the President’s speech, in which he declared victory over our enemies and paved the way for a world where U.S. military might is no longer necessary: In short, we’ve succeeded in defending our nation, taking the …
The U.S. military is on a dangerous course. Under the projected defense spending caps brought on by the Budget Control Act of 2011, funding for modernizing the military will be squeezed to a dangerous degree. That includes reduced spending on the procurement of new weapons and equipment and research and development on new defense technologies as the infographic below shows. (Article continued below.) In a new paper, Heritage’s Baker Spring, the F. M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security Policy, explains the impact the reduced funding will have on America’s defenses: The result …
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 …
