Jeb Golinkin, in a broader look at how avoiding reforms to domestic entitlement programs means we are doing little to combat our spending problem, notes the foolishness of chopping the defense budget on the grounds of fiscal restraint.
The president's desire to cut nuclear weapons falls into the speculative and potentially harmful category. Steep nuclear arms reductions may well trouble many of our European allies (Poland, for instance), who are non-nuclear explicitly because we guarantee to protect them with our nuclear weapons. The Times story also suggests that the administration is eyeing military cuts that go well beyond a simple strategic rethinking of the way we deploy nuclear weapons — the White House is also busy trying to back its way out of the 10-year, $80 billion program set to modernize the country's weapons labs — something Obama promised Senate Republicans in return for their support of the president's last foray into reducing America's nuclear arsenal.
Maybe these are the only major military cuts the president has in mind, and maybe he intends to defy former Speaker Pelosi and get serious on entitlements. But make no mistake: If the President does not defy liberal Democrats, and instead tries to balance the budget by slashing defense, all his cuts will buy this country is a weaker military with an equally damned fiscal balance sheet.