America’s Dangerous Defense Cuts

America’s Dangerous Defense Cuts

Threats are rising around the globe, yet the U.S. is poised to cut $1 trillion from the Pentagon over 10 years.

By John McCain And Mac Thornberry in the Wall Street Journal

Providing for national defense is the highest constitutional responsibility of the federal government, which congressional Republicans now share in equal measure with President Obama. We believe that the country cannot meet this responsibility within the caps on defense spending imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) and sequestration. If Washington does not change course now, Republicans will share the blame for the national-security failures that will inevitably result.

There is no national-security basis for sequestration. In the past year Russia has challenged core principles of the postwar order in Europe by invading and annexing the territory of another sovereign nation. A terrorist army that has proclaimed its desire to attack the United States and its allies now controls a vast swath of territory in the heart of the Middle East.

Iran continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons while expanding its malign influence across the region. And China has stepped up its coercive behavior in Asia, backed by its rapid military modernization. Every year since the Budget Control Act was passed, the world has become more dangerous, and the threats to the nation and to American interests have grown. We do not think this is a coincidence.

And yet, under the BCA with sequestration, the U.S. must cut defense by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years. These cuts are seriously undermining the capabilities, readiness, morale and modernization of the armed forces. The senior military leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps have all testified to our committees that, with defense spending at sequestration levels, they cannot execute the National Military Strategy. These military leaders warned in January that sequestration is putting American lives at risk. This is a crisis of Washington’s own making.

Some advocates of the BCA are willing to overlook its damage to national security because, they claim, at least it cuts the debt. But it doesn’t even do that in a meaningful way.

Military spending is not to blame for out-of-control deficits and debt—it is now 16% of federal spending, the lowest share since before World War II. By 2020, it will be 13%. Interest on the debt soon will consume a larger portion of the federal budget than will military spending. Yet national defense took 50% of the cuts under the Budget Control Act and sequestration. The true drivers of the nation’s long-term debt—entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare—took none.

Heaping nearly $1 trillion in cuts on the U.S. military while ignoring entitlements is not conservative fiscal policy and will not solve the problems of deficits and debt.

There is widespread concern that Defense Department spending is too wasteful. Of course there is waste in the Pentagon—as everywhere in the federal government—and efforts to eliminate it must continue. But sequestration does not target Pentagon waste. It cuts spending recklessly across the board, good programs and bad. Eliminating waste, fraud and abuse is accomplished through vigorous oversight in Congress and at the Pentagon, not through blind, automatic spending cuts.

Some also believe that the impact of sequestration has been exaggerated. But when it comes to national security, “it isn’t that bad” is a dangerously low standard for government policy.

We and our fellow Republicans must also think about the future of the party we love, and from this standpoint as well, sequestration is a disaster. At a time the American people are dissatisfied with the president’s foreign-policy weakness, Republicans cannot offer themselves as the responsible national-security alternative so long as they are complicit in gutting national defense.

President Obama’s recent budget request proposed the largest budget—$534 billion—for the Defense Department in the post-9/11 era. Heeding military commanders’ warning that the military cannot execute national military strategy at sequestration levels, the president’s budget exceeds spending limits set by the Budget Control Act by $36 billion in the coming fiscal year.

America faces what Henry Kissinger has called the most “diverse and complex array of crises since the end of the Second World War.” How can Republicans—the party of Ronald Reagan and “peace through strength”—possibly justify a lower defense budget than that of President Obama?

We must aim higher by adopting a budget worthy of our party’s best traditions of strong national defense. Given the severity of the challenges facing the nation, we recommend eliminating sequestration entirely with a defense budget of $577 billion, the level set by the Budget Control Act before the debilitating effects of sequestration.

There is nothing conservative or Republican about pretending that Washington can balance the budget by cutting defense spending. The new Republican majorities in Congress should not allow such reckless policy.

Continuing to slash defense invites greater danger to national security while shamefully asking the country’s military men and women to do their jobs with shrinking resources. Without a course change, history’s judgment will be harsh, and rightfully so.

Mr. McCain is a Republican senator from Arizona. Mr. Thornberry is a Republican congressman from Texas. They are, respectively, chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees.