Military Cuts vs. World Crises

Robert Samuelson writes for The Washington Post about the deplorable state of the U.S. military budget.

In the past year, we’ve had an elementary tutorial in the uses of raw military power: in Ukraine, where Russia manufactured a “rebellion”; in Iraq, where the Islamic State expanded its footprint; and in Asia, where China harassed ships of nations claiming islands China considers its own. But the implications of these events seem to have escaped the Obama White House and Congress.

They are systematically reducing U.S. military power as if none of this had happened. (snip) It’s a money pot of possible reductions to pay for burgeoning retirement benefits, mainly Social Security and Medicare, which are largely immune to cuts.

The world gets uglier while we get weaker. Something is badly wrong with this picture.