There is a reason Congress lets our debt keep growing.
Balancing the budget, much less cutting back the debt, would require huge, systemic changes. Changes better understood by sociologists than bookkeepers.
This week, President Barack Obama called for what might be the most drastic of such structural revisions — a cut into the U.S. military. Without concrete numbers, officials have suggested 10-15 percent cuts in the numbers of Marines and soldiers we keep handy.
These cuts would lessen our ability to fight multiple full-scale wars at once, and radically reduce the number of U.S. troops stationed abroad.
Unsurprisingly, GOP leaders like Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, were quick to call Obama’s plan a “retreat.”
If that were true, it would raise interesting questions — about leadership, security and the wisdom of our last two decades.
But Obama has yet to “retreat,” at any point, on military matters.
In the context of our last three years, it’s quite clear he’s not calling for a scaling down. This president, who speaks of harmony at home, has never been afraid of waging war beyond our borders. In his last campaign, he spoke of using force to defend allies, interests and ideals; in office he’s done all of the above.
As much a wartime president as his predecessor, he’s somehow managed to expand the power — and audacity — of U.S. military dominance while drawing down troop levels and wrapping up the Iraq War.
On Thursday, Obama promised us armed forces “that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats.” As we’ve seen the last few years, this kind of force is neither weaker, nor less dominant.
This is the type of force that flew into a sovereign nation, stormed a compound, shot Osama bin Laden in the head and dumped his corpse in the ocean.
This is the type of force that drone-bombed two Americans last fall in rural Yemen, where ground troops could not go and didn’t have to.
And it’s the type of force that broke Libyan power without a soldier, in a deadly, low-risk campaign from the air.
Obama wasn’t talking last Thursday about relaxing American leadership.
The military he’s building doesn’t lack for power, or for reach. As he was quick to point out, we’ll still spend more on defense “than roughly the next 10 countries combined.”
But we’ll be colder. We’ll be harder. We’ll be much less friendly, striking from afar.
The presence of Americans abroad can have positive effects and often does. Just this week, U.S. warships happened upon pirates in the Arabian Sea, rescuing 13 Iranian fishermen in a PR moment that seemed almost too good to be true.
In recent years, we’ve had few such hero moments. U.S. soldiers living, working and fighting overseas have been increasingly supplanted by sophisticated, long-range killing technology. Our new hit-and-run global police force wields very little soft power.
Beyond dollar signs, there are sometimes bigger consequences. Spending too much money can be bad for us. Saving in the wrong way can be worse. There’s a very big debate here we’re not having.
Reach the columnist at john.a.gaylord@asu.edu
