Since 2009, American spending on defense has been reduced as a percent of GDP, from 4.6 in 2009 to 3.8 in 2013. Russia spends 17.5 percent of GDP on defense, a figure that will increase to 21% by 2017. China has increased its military budget at a pace faster than either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. did at the height of the Cold War.
In addition to threats from other nations, the rising danger from terrorism requires a robust defense. ISIS, for example, is well funded and some believe it is pursuing the acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability.
Despite the $700 billion spent on the President’s “Stimulus” package, a glaring defense vulnerability in the U.S. homeland—the need to protect the national electrical grid from an electro-magnetic pulse attack which would cripple the U.S. for decades—remains un-addressed and unfunded.
Sharp reductions in the defense budget are the most significant of the efforts to engage in questionable, short-term goals at the expense of the nation’s future. In an effort to fund massive increases in social spending, the military has suffered budget cuts at a time when the world has grown increasingly dangerous.
It is important to put this into context. By 2008, the U.S. military had already been sharply reduced. From its high point in the last decade of the 20th century, the Navy had slipped from 600 ships to 284. The Air Force from 37 fighter commands to 20, and the Army from 17 divisions to 10. Much of the remaining equipment was aged and worn from overuse in various wars. The U.S. nuclear arsenal was rapidly becoming obsolete. America was dependent on Russia for certain rocket engines, and on China for certain other key ingredients in our weapons.
Significant new threats, such as cyber warfare, have emerged even as Washington has reduced defense spending.
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China has attained a level of military sophistication that equals and in some areas surpasses America’s.
Most worrisome, China and Russia have established a de-facto alliance aimed at the United States. Both nations, along with Iran, have established ties with Latin American and Caribbean states. Both assist client states, including Iran and North Korea, that individually and collectively present a significant danger to the U.S. and its allies.
Even in the face of these threats, the President continues to advocate unilateral reductions in the American nuclear arsenal and continues to oppose a viable anti-ballistic missile system to defend the homeland from a nuclear attack.
The disintegration of American military supremacy returns the planet to a state of affairs that existed before the Second World War, with probable consequences that are deeply disturbing. Russia now occupies the role of Nazi Germany, casting an envious eye on the territory of other nations. Vladimir Putin has even adopted some of the language of the Third Reich, including using an excuse of protecting Russian ethnic groups outside of his nation’s borders as an excuse to threaten his neighbors. China serves as the 21st Century version of imperial Japan, seeking to establish hegemony in Asia and beyond.
Those favoring cuts to defense note that the U.S. spends more than its adversaries. That must be tempered by the large hidden spending in nations without a free press, and in the fact that a significant portion of the U.S. defense budget goes to expenses other countries don’t include in their military spending figures. It also fails to include the sobering realization that from Moscow to Beijing, Tehran to Pyongyang, and in terrorist camps throughout the world, it is the United States that is the main target.