Robert Samuelson March 9, 2013

The crisis in Ukraine reminds us that the future is unpredictable, thatwars routinely involve miscalculation and that brute force — boots onthe ground, bombs in the air — counts. None of these obvious lessonsseems to have made much impression in Washington, where the Obamaadministration and Congress continue their policy of defunding defenseand reducing the United States’ military power.

The administration’s new 2015 budget projections show how sharply the Pentagon shrinks. In nominal dollars (unadjusted forinflation), defense spending stays flat between 2013 and 2024. It’s $626 billion in 2013 and $630 billion in 2024. Adjusted for inflation andpopulation growth, it drops by a quarter. As a share of the federalbudget, it falls from 18 percent in 2013 to 11 percent in 2024.Meanwhile, Social Security spending in nominal dollars increases 85percent to $1.5 trillion by 2024 and Medicare advances 75 percent to$863 billion. The inflation-adjusted gains are also large.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has outlined some program cuts behind the spending declines. The Army drops from a recent peak of 570,000 to 450,000 — the lowest since before World War II — and, possibly, 420,000. The Marine Corps falls 10 percent from its peak to 182,000. The Air Force retires all its A-10 “Warthog” ground-support fighters, as well as its U-2 spy planes. The Navy halts purchases ofits Littoral Combat Ships at 32 instead of the planned 52.

The United States has a military for two reasons. One is to deterconflicts. Even if every Pentagon spending cut were desirable —manifestly untrue — their collective size symbolically underminesdeterrence. It telegraphs that the United States is retreating, that itis war-weary and reluctant to deploy raw power as an instrument ofnational policy. President Obama’s undisguised distaste for using themilitary amplifies the message.

This may embolden potential adversaries and abet miscalculation. The UnitedStates’ military retrenchment won’t make China’s leaders less ambitiousglobally. (China plans a 12 percent increase in military spending for 2014; at that pace, spending would double in six years.) Nor will itdampen Iran’s aggressiveness and promote a negotiated settlement overits nuclear program. Probably the reverse. Diplomacy often fails unlessbacked by a credible threat of force.

The second reason for a military is to defend national interests — andprevail in conflict. Just what this requires is hard to say, because the nature of war is shifting to include cyberattacks, non-stateadversaries and the threat of weapons of mass destruction. “When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements,” former defensesecretary Robert Gates has noted, “our record [since Vietnam] has beenperfect. We have never once gotten it right.”

There are many potential war theaters: Persian Gulf nations, including Iranif the United States bombed its nuclear facilities; the South China Sea; the Korean Peninsula; Pakistan, if theft of its nuclear weapons werethreatened. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine raises the prospect that asizable number of U.S. troops might be stationed in the Baltic nationsor Poland. All belong to NATO; all must now feel more threatened byRussia.

The Pentagon has already downgraded its capabilities. It has abandoned itspast assumption that it could fight two major wars simultaneously. Ithas also disavowed any long-lasting counterinsurgency. “Our forces willno longer be sized to conduct large-scale prolonged stabilityoperations,” says the latest Quadrennial Defense Review. The self-serving premise is that wars can be fought and won quickly, because otherwise budgets don’t work.

All this is a huge gamble. Hagel says that today’s reduced funding creates “added risk” (translation: higher combat deaths, lower odds ofsuccess). He warns that a return to “sequestration” (deepercongressionally mandated cuts) would create a “hollow force.”

Defense spending should reflect a strategic vision of the U.S. global role.This would balance Americans’ unwillingness to be the “world’s cop” with the observed truth that, given today’s interconnectedness, distantevents can affect vital U.S. interests. In reality, strategy is drivenby political expedience and a shortage of cash. It reflects populardisillusion with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It presumes that theworld won’t punish the political preferences of America’s leaders. Obama and Democrats won’t sacrifice social spending for defense spending;Republicans won’t admit that higher defense spending requires highertaxes.

The inattention to these developments is stunning. The Post’s main story on the administration’s 2015 budget barely mentioned defense; the same was true of the comparable story in the New York Times. Christine H. Fox, the acting deputy secretary of defense, recently noted that “the world has gotten no less dangerous, turbulentor in need of American leadership. There is no obvious peace dividend as was the case at the end of the Cold War.” But we’re pretending there is — and spending it madly.

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