BUTTER FOR GUNS

In the 1990s, defense cuts helped pay for increased domestic spending, and that is true today. Though Gates said his decisions were "almost exclusively influenced by factors other than simply finding a way to balance the books," the broad list of program reductions and terminations suggest otherwise:

• The termination of the F-22 Raptor program at just 187 aircraft inevitably will call U.S. air supremacy -- the salient feature, since World War II, of the American way of war -- into question.
• The U.S. Navy will continue to shrink below the fleet size of 313 ships it set a few years ago; the number of aircraft carriers will drop eventually to 10.
• The proposed cuts in space and missile defense programs, including the termination of the Airborne Laser and Transformational Satellite programs -- the most promising form of defense against ballistic missiles -- reflect a retreat in emerging environments that are increasingly critical in modern warfare.

Gates justified these cuts as a matter of "hard choice" and "budget discipline." The budget cuts he is recommending are not a temporary measure; rather, they are the opening bid in what, if the Obama administration has its way, will be a future U.S. military that is smaller and packs less wallop...

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image toon - nsec gwot - Defense budget = half a carrier