http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/defense-budget-cuts-111834.html?hp=t1_3#.VD1cHxZ4OM4Is America's Military Too Small for Obama's New War on Terror?
Twelve ways to rethink the defense budget.
By POLITICO MAGAZINE
October 13, 2014
“If you’re asking me, do I assess right now … that we’re going to have budget problems?” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said last month. “Yes.”
He’s not the only one. Although the massive automatic defense cuts known as the sequester were relaxed in last year’s budget deal, they are set to return in 2016 unless Congress and the president can reach a new agreement. That doesn’t bode well for the major international challenge the United States now faces in the Islamic State—and Obama’s new campaign against these militants in Iraq and Syria, which the Pentagon estimates could cost up to $10 million a day and last for “years.” As Dempsey put it, “The commitments have gone up, and the things that we were looking for in terms of flexibility have only very minimally been delivered.” Even the nation-building-at-home president is urging Congress to restore the sequester-slashed funds that are “necessary for them to be able to succeed at their mission.”
So: Does the United States need a new defense budget to fight Obama’s new war on terror? And if so, what should that new budget look like—where should the Pentagon cut, and where should it add? We asked a dozen top military thinkers, and here’s what they had to say.
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