Defense Budget

"The single biggest threat to our national security is our debt.”

President Obama says the United States should reallocate defense resources to foreign aid efforts. He also added that most Americans misunderstand how much of the federal budget goes to diplomacy.

The New York Times reported Monday that congressional Republicans were split on the coming defense budget sequestration, with many in the GOP suggesting the cuts ought to go through because "fiscal questions trump defense" Now, more than 70 foreign policy experts, including prominent Republicans…

The planned cuts to the defense budget as a result of the sequestration could mean reductions in benefits fo active members of the military and their families. Adam Kredo reports:

Bluffton, S.C.

In Tuesday's debate, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney once again made clear that he thinks cutting defense spending is a bad idea, even at a time when he supports reducing the size of government. The former Massachusetts governor was answering a question about the debt deal…

There is a certain irony, as well as much truth, in Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s drumbeat of warnings about the consequences of further cuts to U.S. military budgets of the sort threatened under the current deficit reduction law.

In an op-ed at foxnews.com, John Bolton defends defense:

With the congressional “supercommittee” – or, to be precise, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – now complete, the stage is set for a very high drama indeed. Now comes the moment when Americans must confront the costs of remaining the world’s sole superpower, the guarantor of an…

Can the debt deal pass the House of Representatives? House speaker John Boehner has said he believes he has the votes from the Republican caucus, and Steny Hoyer, the Democratic minority whip, says he can deliver 80 to 100 votes from his side of the aisle. Key GOP House members who have said…

House Republicans held a press conference in the Capitol Saturday to denounce what they called dangerous cuts to defense spending in Senator Harry Reid's debt limit bill. Buck McKeon (R, Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, warned that Reid's bill would cut defense by more than…

“Extraordinarily difficult and very high risk.” That’s how General Martin Dempsey, the Army’s chief of staff and Obama’s pick to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bluntly described proposals by the president and certain lawmakers to cut national security spending by anywhere from $400 billion to $1…

Jamie Fly, writing at National Review Online: 

The foremost obligation of the federal government is to provide for the safety of the American people. Yet as the budget debate continues, it’s becoming increasingly clear that certain politicians want to trim the defense budget in order to repurpose money for social entitlement programs, such as…

One of the least covered aspects of the debt limit negotiations has been defense spending. Obama administration officials and congressional Democrats have indicated that the White House would like to include significant defense cuts as part of an eventual deal, even beyond the $400 billion in cuts…

Opinion polls consistently show that the U.S. military is the most trusted institution in America. Republicans have benefited indirectly from that hard-won reputation because since the 1970s they have been seen as the strong, hawkish party, while Democrats have had to fight the stigma that they are…

There are many reasons to be skeptical that any likely budget deal would be worth supporting. And it’s long past time for Republicans to be planning strategically, and laying the groundwork legislatively and politically, for an outcome of no deal (or possibly a mini-deal that doesn’t sacrifice…

In today's Wall Street Journal, Dan Blumenthal and Michael Mazza note that the China's growing military might should give American leaders something to think about with regard to our defense budget:

In comments today in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is holding a hearing for Leon Panetta's nomination to be the next secretary of Defense, Senator John McCain warned against drastic Defense budget cuts and dangerous, immediate drawdown in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At a commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned against allowing America's might and military to decline. "As we make the tough choices needed to put this country’s finances in order and to secure our future prosperity – including the sacrifices that…

The killing of Osama bin Laden says a lot about the United States at war. It occurred almost a decade after 9/11, contradicting the notion that a democracy can’t fight a long war. It demonstrates that our presence in Afghanistan, without which the raid would have been impossible, is our main point…

In February, Defense secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sounded a cautionary note at a congressional hearing on the defense budget. "We shrink from our global security responsibilities at our peril," Gates warned members of Congress. "Retrenchment…

In proposing to cut another $400 billion from U.S. defense budgets over the next ten years as part of his deficit reduction counter-offer, Barack Obama’s words were few. Yet they were revealing.

The crisis in Libya provides a useful reminder that the world’s demand for American power is rising. This is clearly the case in the Muslim world, which was in turmoil long before the current “Arab spring.” As Senator Richard Lugar recently fretted, “Libya might not be the last of these cases.”…

Perhaps it was inevitable. After ten years of contentious wrangling and with tens of billions of dollars going to the winner of the competition to build the U.S. Air Force's next fleet of tankers, no matter who won there would be recriminations and charges that the fix was in. If the European…

Defense secretary Robert Gates says the United States has not had discussions with its NATO partners about how to handle the unfolding crisis in Libya, and he believes that the United States could not quickly enforce a no-fly zone in the country to keep military jets from shooting on the citizens…

The Defending Defense trio, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Foreign Policy Initiative, released this statement in response to President Obama's budget:

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) was founded to the sound of many hosannas in 2007. The organization was the brainchild of Kurt Campbell, now the assistant secretary of state for East Asia, and Michele Flournoy, who is now deputy secretary of defense and often mentioned as a potential…

“The Department of Defense is a government bureaucracy, cousin to the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the rest. That means it has the same Dawn of the Dead–zombie instincts.”

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former House majority leader Dick Armey combines with his FreedomWorks partner Matt Kibbe to suggest “What Congress Should Cut” in order to reduce the deficit and debt.

Tom Donnelly, Mackenzie Eaglen, and Jamie Fly write:

Three Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee, in addition to the chairman, Buck McKeon, have put out statements critical of the new round of Obama defense cuts—Todd Akin, Randy Forbes, and Rob Wittman.

Mark Helprin writes in the Wall Street Journal: 

Gary Schmitt writes on AEI's blog: 

In a joint statement, three conservative think tanks criticize defense cuts included in a number of budget proposals floating around Washington: 

Fred and Kim Kagan on why defense spending must not be cut:

Today, the Washington Post reports that Eric Cantor "said on CNN Wednesday that all discretionary spending should be cut to 2008 levels, including defense."

“It could have been much worse.”  That’s the line many of my British friends are putting forward about the cuts to the British defense budget announced by the new Tory government this past week.  And they’re right. Early on, word both inside Whitehall and on the streets of London was that the new…

Yesterday, both the New York Times and Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy’s “The Cable” posted pieces on the growing pressure within Congress to cut defense spending.  And, indeed, both the House and Senate appropriators are well on their way to doing precisely that to the Obama administration’s FY 2011…