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Defend America on Sunday, February 07, 2010 8:32:45 AM
The Disarming of America
The outlook for our armed forces under Obama: not good.
February 15, 2010,
Vol. 15, No. 21
In the cover story in the latest issue of Foreign Policy,
Walter Russell Mead argues that Barack Obama’s foreign policy should be
understood as a channeling of Thomas Jefferson via Jimmy Carter. The
cover picture makes the point more bluntly. It shows two men linked by
a boldface equals sign: Barack Obama = Jimmy Carter.
...
Obama’s neo-Jeffersonian defense posture would reduce the profile of
U.S. military power. To do this, the administration has only to let
nature take its course: The U.S. armed forces have been shortchanged
since the end of the Cold War. George W. Bush may have been a hawk, but
he was a cheap hawk, and only in the wake of the decision to surge
forces in Iraq in 2007 did he ask Congress to increase the size of the
military, adding a mere 37,000 soldiers to the active rolls of the
Army. Bill Clinton before him reaped a bounteous “peace dividend,”
making the largest of the post-Cold War reductions.
But the defense review and budget proposal suggest that the Obama
administration wants to limit future American military “adventurism” by
limiting our capabilities. The president is looking to eliminate the
last vestiges of the Reagan-era buildup. Once the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan are “ended” (not “won”), the arms control treaties signed,
and defense budgets held at historic lows while social entitlements and
debt service rise to near-European levels, the era of American
superpower will have passed. Mead summarized Obama’s Jeffersonian
approach neatly:
http://weeklystandard.com/articles/disarming-america