For our money, one of the better parts of President Obama's speech at West Point this week was his connection between a healthy economy and U.S. national security. To quote: "Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy." We only wish Mr. Obama understood the link between the larger welfare state he is trying to build at home and the economic weakness that will undermine our military power.

The proof is right before his eyes in the U.S. struggle to get Europe to contribute more forces to Afghanistan. Mr. Obama has called on NATO to buttress the U.S. surge of 30,000 in Afghanistan with 5,000 or more European troops. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Brussels today to round up promissory notes. But except for the usual stalwarts—Britain and Poland—the allies are having trouble meeting even this modest goal. Germany and France are reluctant to contribute anything more to defeat the Taliban.

This is by now a familiar story, and a big part of the problem is the relative lack of military spending. Among the Western Europeans, only France and the U.K. spend more than 2% of GDP on defense, supposedly the NATO-mandated minimum. Nearly everyone else is below that. Germany, the continent's largest economy, stands at 1.3%. U.S. defense spending has been above 4% of GDP since 2004, having fallen to 3% after the Cold War ended.

No amount of pleading and shaming has worked on the continentals. NATO launched the "Defense Capabilities Initiative" in 1999, only to abandon it a few years later. Various attempts to stand up European "rapid reaction" forces have floundered.

Most European countries also commit more than half of what little they do spend on defense to soldier salaries and benefits. Equipment and training are shortchanged. Belgium devotes 74% to personnel; the U.S. 30.6%. Europeans lack cargo planes and helicopters to enable troops to get to, and move within, far-off conflict zones. In 2007, the U.S. deployed 14% of its troops in overseas operations, Europe 4%.

Such relative strategic weakness has made the Europeans more dependent on the American security umbrella, even as they resent it. But it also makes Europeans more disposed to avoid confrontation with adversaries like Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Henry Kissinger has put it, European leaders are no longer able to ask their people to make major sacrifices.

The overlooked culprit here is the rise of the modern welfare state. Since World War II and especially from the 1960s, Europe has built elaborate domestic income-maintenance programs, with government-run health care, pensions and jobless benefits. These are hugely expensive, requiring high taxes and government spending that is a huge proportion of GDP. The nearby table compares the so-called tax wedge across nations, which is one measure of the relative burdens to finance cradle-to-grave entitlements.

One consequence has been slower growth in Europe, relative to the U.S. and China, with less tax revenue to spend on everything. Another result is that welfare spending has crowded out defense spending. The political imperative of health care and pensions always trumps defense spending, save perhaps in a hot war. Europe may never again be able to muster public support for a defense buildup of the kind the U.S. undertook to end the Cold War in the 1980s, or even the smaller surge after 9/11.

The tragic irony of this year is that Democrats are rushing the U.S. down this same primrose entitlement path. With ObamaCare certain to eat up several more percentage points of GDP as it inevitably expands, we will take a giant step toward European social priorities.

For many Democrats, this is precisely the goal. Many Europeans, such as those at the Financial Times, will also welcome America's relative decline. But we doubt the American people fully understand what such a gilded entitlement cage means for our national vitality, or for our ability to defend U.S. interests at home and abroad.

The chart nearby shows the change in the share of U.S. federal spending on defense and domestic programs across recent decades. The upward blips in defense outlays occurred during Vietnam, the Reagan buildup and post-9/11. But the overall trend has been to spend less of the budget on defense. Add the stimulus, ObamaCare, a new entitlement for college and other Democratic plans, and the defense squeeze will only tighten. Higher taxes and borrowing may allow guns and butter to co-exist for a while. But over time, the welfare state will defeat the Pentagon here, as it has in Europe.

President Obama's domestic agenda may well mean that his successors lack the option to deploy 100,000 troops to Afghanistan, or to some other future trouble spot. This is the way superpowers lose their superiority.

The Foreign Office refused to discuss the funding but privately officials confirmed the money was cut amid vain hopes that the Americans would foot the bill instead...

“It was a highly successful mission and the Afghans were getting better every day,” a special forces source said last week. “The paltry sums involved were getting a pretty valuable return.”

Ed Butler, who commanded British troops when they first deployed to Helmand in 2006, said: “It strikes me as pretty counter-intuitive and verging on the ridiculous to cut this funding when the government is stressing the training of Afghan security forces as a way of withdrawing our troops.”

...The Conservatives said it “beggared belief" that the Foreign Office should withdraw funding from what was clearly an important project.

Even the smallest of counter-insurgency programs prove too much of a strain for the British military to sustain.

The next article, U.S. Seeks 10,000 Troops From Its Allies In Afghanistan, shows America’s other allies cannot sustain token troops in Afghanistan, let alone increase force levels.

The United States is scrambling to coax NATO allies to send 10,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as part of President Obama’s strategy for the region. Those countries appear willing to provide fewer than half that number, American and allied officials said Wednesday.

The British government is facing opinion polls showing that around 70 percent of the public favors an early withdrawal...

Germany and France have balked at committing any more forces to a war that has so little public support that they can barely maintain current troop levels...

The Netherlands and Canada have begun discussing plans to pull out. Canadian defense officials told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in Halifax last week that they had no intention of sending troops in the future, and that they remained committed to withdrawing by the end of 2011...

Waning public opinion plays an important role in most NATO members’ reluctance to remain in Afghanistan, but I believe the heart of the matter lies in two important facts: Europe can no longer afford to send troops abroad; and they know the US will pick up the slack.

As sun sets in the west, it also rises in the east. China,Japan Boost Defence Ties illustratesas western power quickly retreats once staunch allies are running for cover and seeking other benefactors.

Japan and China yesterday agreed to conduct their first joint military training exercise as ties warm up between the Asian neighbors, which have long argued over a range of issues and have been suspicious of each other

Top defence officials and military officers from both sides will also meet regularly...(and) The joint exercise will be held next year, according to the Japanese Defence Ministry.

Japan knows the Pax America that kept peace across the Pacific for half a century is coming to an end and China’s rising power is fed from America’s and Europe’s decay. They are smartly moving out from under one shadow to another.  US Navy and Air Force power in the region is atrophying, and China is quickly rising, as seen the article Admiral Says PLA's Strength, Intentions Should Be Displayed.

Beijing should not be shy of displaying the full breadth of its growing military power and intentions to the world, a senior naval officer wrote in comments published yesterday.

In a commentary in the Global Times, a newspaper published by party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, Naval Rear Admiral Yang Yi said Beijing should expand its military power and need not hide this from the world.

“We should confidently and overtly tell the US and other countries that China needs to expand its overseas military power because of the continuation of national interests abroad,” wrote Yang, director of the Strategic Studies Institute under the People’s Liberation Army’s National Defence University

...Yang said Sino-US strategic relations were moving from the level of “common interest” to “ balance of power”.

 “The Taiwan issue has been the most sensitive and explosive problem,” he wrote. “This is a friendly reminder to the US – please be careful, careful, careful, and don’t think Beijing won’t dare to declare war with Washington.”

Anthony Wong Dong, president of the International Military Association, an independent grouping of observers based in Macau, said the article was a candid assessment.

These articles show the West can no longer sustain low-intensity combat operations against an enemy clearly bent on their destruction. At the same time, China is drawing traditional allies from the US orbit and brazenly challenging America as the sole military superpower.

They have the money and leverage to do so. We, on the other hand, have vaults full of IOUs and a congress full of fools.

I don’t like the odds.

The Hill reported on 19 November:

Ranking member Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) raised alarm over a “dramatic decline” in funding for weapons systems — from 35 percent of the overall defense budget in fiscal 2010 to 24 percent in 2020...

“The picture is not a pretty one,” Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in his opening statement Wednesday at a hearing on future defense budgets.

The CBO also states the Obama Administration is low-balling its requested Pentagon budget by 6% versus what is required for the Department of Defense's current missions.

A 13% cut vs. GDP over 5 years...while fighting two wars.  Keep in mind, the GDP is stagnant due to the deep recession and this figure also doesn’t factor in potential inflation.

In my last blog entry I highlighted the imminent demise of the Royal Air Force. Over the next 5 years the RAF will slash its force by 25%, essential ending it as a global power projection force.

This morning’s Washington Times heralds the same forces are now at work eroding America’s military might:

...The era of American military dominance, or "Pax Americana," is dwindling as the nation loses its position far atop the global marketplace, a congressional military analyst said Wednesday...

...The new dynamic - in which the U.S. remains a world force, but does not hold the pre-eminent position it attained after World War II - is the result of global financial centers shifting to Asia, said Stephen Daggett, a defense policy and budget specialist for the Congressional Research Service...

..."It seems this administration finds massive amounts of money for bailout and [stimulus spending] but not enough to fund the basic money needed for defensive hardware and personnel," said Rep. Trent Franks, Arizona Republican.

Victor Davis Hansen had a good quote this morning, “...political influence and military power are ultimately predicated on economic strength.”

Our economic strength, like that of Great Britain, is dying as we quickly drowned in a sea of self-induced socialist debt. Only two pillars are keeping us afloat: the fact oil is traded in dollars and the might of the US military protecting the global trade system.

The dollar hangs upon a precipice; it dies overnight if the world turns to another medium for oil trading. Now, our military is about to be cannibalized to feed the socialist beast eating us all alive.

When the US military is gone, depleted in endless wars abroad and cashiered for progressive votes, it will not rise again. We will be naked before our enemies and creditors...one in the same.

…Now, sources tell us that OSD may actually chop an additional carrier from the Navy’s battle fleet, a move that would take the force down to nine carriers from the current total of 11…Skipping a future carrier purchase doesn’t save money now. Cutting one flattop from the existing force would.

…For one, the Navy is required by law to maintain 11 carriers… when former CSBA naval analyst and now Navy under secretary, Bob Work, gave his shipbuilding brief earlier this year, he said that if forced by a constrained shipbuilding budget to trim the planned build, he would cut the carrier force to 9.

Work’s former boss at CSBA, the influential Andrew Krepinevich, wrote in the July issue of Foreign Affairs in an article…carriers risk “operational irrelevance” as nations develop improved submarines and increasingly accurate, long-range anti-ship missiles that put the big flattops at risk. (emphasis mine)

Krepinevich’s argument missile technology and submarine proliferation makes flattops irrelevant are the same arguments from the 1970s, when the left tried to kill America’s super carrier programs. How does this make any sense? Aren’t these conventional capabilities the very threats the modern carrier is designed to combat? A third world fleet with a few electric diesels and some shore-to-ship missiles are a pale reflection of the Soviet Fleet at its height (which dared not directly engage a super carrier task force).

The simliar arguments are now turned against the F-22, like in this article from this morning’s Time.com by Mark Thompson:

The Air Force spent years fighting to keep building the $350 million F-22 fighter, an airplane crammed with so much gee-whiz technology there's a law barring it from being sold to any other nation. But since no other nation is building such a plane to challenge it, the F-22 has become a costly investment with an uncertain payoff...now the service is seeking 100 slower, lower-flying and far cheaper airplanes — most likely prop-driven — that it can use to kill insurgents today and use to train local pilots — such as Afghans or Iraqis — tomorrow.

The list of requirements for what the Air Force is calling its Light Attack Armed Reconnaissance plane is fairly basic, and ... must be capable of flying 900-mile missions at up to 200 miles per hour (compared with up to 1500 mph for the F-22), including at night and poor weather. It will carry guns and rockets, along with a pair of 500-pound bombs, according to an Air Force solicitation issued last month. It will have to fly to and from dirt airfields where the only ground support is fuel...

Planes likely to vie for the contract — slated to begin flying in 2012 —include the Kansas-built Hawker Beechcraft T-6, currently the Air Force's basic trainer... This emphasis on down-and-dirty warfare is a real change for the Air Force, which for years has been hyper-focused on building the most sophisticated fighter planes in the world. The military blog Danger Room recently quoted from Air Force studies dating back to 2005 that spoke of the service's "pre-occupation with procurement of the F-22" at the expense of counter-insurgency missions, and its "nasty habit of forgetting the hard-learned lessons of irregular operations..."

The Air Force's new top officer has said this low-tech aircraft "is really consistent with Secretary Gates' thinking" in favor of simple weapons that can be bought quickly and perform more than one mission. A rugged and simple warplane that can be flown against insurgents by U.S. pilots who also train foreign pilots in their own language "is a very attractive way to approach this problem," General Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, said in April.

His civilian boss concurs. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley recently said that such a plane "will help build up the security capabilities of partners facing counter-terrorist operations, counter-insurgency operations." Nations like Afghanistan and Iraq "are not going to be able to — and do not have a need to — operate at that higher end of the conflict spectrum," he added. Nor can they afford to — the $350 million used to buy each of the 187 F-22s will pay for a fleet of about 50 of these planned counter-insurgency warplanes.

First, Mr. Thompson’s assertion that “no other nation is building such a plane to challenge(the F-22)” is dead wrong. How can someone write for a major magazine and blatantly get such a basic fact wrong?About 2 minutes on Google turned up these facts on a challenger to the F-22:

“The PAK FA (or PAK-FA) is a Russian fifth-generation fighter jet ...intended to replace the MiG-29 and Su-27 in the Russian Air Force...”

“On 07 July 2008 Air Force commander Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin said "We will begin test flights [of the new fighter] in 2009, and hope to receive the aircraft in 2013".

The left made the same arguments in the 1970s when they tried to kill the F-15 as “too expensive and too complex.” Thirty years later the mighty F-15 is considered by most has the most successful fighter plane in history. Now the left wants the Air Force to get rid of its premiere fighter capability because there are no peer competitors and it wants the Navy to cut back on its premiere surface capability because there are peer competitors. This is laughable.

The Air Force must make every dollar it spends count. This means pursuing multi-role platforms, like the F-35 and F/A-22 (yes, it was once called the “F/A” for both fighter and attack). These can be used for both air defense and close air support. A little modified T-6 cannot perform ANY other mission than light counter insurgency ops. In this role it will be fodder for AAA (anti-aircraft artillery) and MANPAD (man portable air defense) missiles in any theater of war. The Air Force already has counter-insurgency capabilities it can expand on in the form of the venerable A-10 and the new Reaper UAV. Why not buy more of these?

These arguments are simply smoke screens for cutting weapon systems to fund domestic initiatives. We are repeating the Hollow Force concept under the Carter Administration in the wake of LBJ’s massive “Great Society” domestic programs. In the wake of these decisions we are stripping America of its ability to project strategic power and defend our nation from afar.

The Pentagon is being limited to zero growth as well as having $60 billion redirected from current budget to initiatives not necessarily in line with the Pentagon’s requirements priorities.

As Defense News reports Some of these initiatives are legitimate:

…the big winners appear to be light intratheater cargo planes, unmanned aerial vehicles, countermine warfare systems.

However, according to Newsweek, about 5% of that $60 billion, or $2.7 billion, is being doled out to key congressional vote-getters like Rep John Murtha, head of the House the Defense Appropriations Committee, and Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

I believe if these, and other congressmen, play ball with the White House this fall on critical votes healthcare and cap & trade (regardless of how vocal their constituents tell them to oppose these programs) they may see their precious pork emerge unscathed in the final defense budget.  In my opinion, the defense department will be used as a slush fund to bring congressional votes into line. If you want to know of healthcare reform will pass, then maybe you need to look at the congressional and senate line-item appropriations in the defense budget. The future of the President’s domestic initiative may very well be forged when for defense budget is built. Next step: follow the pork when the Senate gets its hands on the defense budget.

DefenseNews goes on to say:

…Losers may include amphibious craft, heavy armored vehicle and air defense systems, according to defense officials and experts… Asked how program cuts to free up dollars to fill the $60 billion shortfall might be split among the services, Ochmanek said: “Higher-end stuff is typically more expensive.”Defense analysts said that suggests the Navy and Air Force will receive the bulk of the $60 billion (budget cuts).

Aviation Week & Space Technology states:

An early look at the U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) reveals major force and capability alterations that are being described as “high-g changes in direction, and high-g causes pain,” says a senior U.S. Air Force official.

Moreover, the pared-down, reshaped, multifunctional forces under consideration are expected to cost $50-60 billion over five years above the planning target of no real growth in defense spending through Fiscal 2015…

This is the where the defense budget is heading: no additional spending though 2015, continuing combat operations, billions of extra funds needed to withdrawal forces from Iraq in the next few years (if everything goes as planned), huge modernization bills overdue for the Air Force and Navy, and the whole budget being used as a political sweetener to advance the president’s domestic agenda.

The sad side effect of this pork-barrel politics is transformation of our military from a strategic global power projection force to an expeditionary ground support only good for peacekeeping and counter-insurgency. More specifically, we’re gutting the U.S Air Force into nothing more than a glorified army air corps. 

David Ochmanek, deputy assistant secretary of defense for force transformation and resources, said the Pentagon had identified gaps in its capabilities and had told the services to fill them, while assuming no overall budget growth.

"It's now up to the components to figure out how best to make real those new capabilities and capacities and to find offsets within an assumption of zero real growth," Ochmanek told a group of defense reporters...

The Obama administration has asked Congress for $663.8 billion for the Pentagon for the 2010 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, including $130 billion in war funding, mainly for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gates made his statement to Congress yesterday on his plan for defense spending with few surprises. Let’s revisit my predictions:

1. Some defense spending will remain strong, even as the budget shrinks. This will only be for certain mature programs and only in key democratic districts. 

Defense spending will increase by 4% in real dollars. That’s about par with inflation (depending on whose inflation numbers one uses), though smaller than the service chiefs asked for.

The F-35 program will increase. The tanker program survives. The Navy can keep its 11-carrier fleet and buy more F/A-18s. Its new destroy will be scaled back, not cut, and it can resume building Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The Army’s future combat system will also be scaled back. The Marines will lose the new presidential helicopter program but, with the Army, will boost force strength. Special operations and intelligence assets also get a big boost.

Now its congresses turn. In the end they have the final say. I think they will go along with most (but not all) of Gates’ recommendations due to tremendous pressure from the White House. Any changes will be to align spending and programs with districts of the democratic majority. We will know for sure by fall of this year.

2. 'Big programs, small programs, nothing will be sacred. Expect early retirement for various weapon systems. This will not impact democratic districts. Don’t hold your breath on a new rescue helicopter unless the HH-47 wins. Parts of it are made in Murtha’s state of PA.

Murtha was out with knee surgery and the entire Air Force rescue helicopter went down in flames. In fact, only the Air Force took major force-wide hits. Only its tanker program made it out unscathed (the F-35 is a joint program with Navy, Marines and U.K.). The F-22 was terminated – no more will be built. The C-17 was terminated – no more will be built. Missile defense – gutted. The new bomber – scrapped. New transformational satellite program – scrapped. Over 200 front line fighters – retired. It was another bad day for the Air Force.

3. Rep. Barney Frank’s comment about a 25% cut in overall defense spending will come true, but not in the baseline budget. Expect the wartime supplemental spending to plummet as troops come home from Iraq.

Supplemental spending debate doesn’t begin in earnest until later this spring…more to follow here.

What do I think about all these changes Sec. Gates is making? I’m still digesting his proposals, but I don’t think he had much choice. I’ll discuss this in more detail later.

With that, I think it’s a good time to review some of the predictions I made since last fall:

3. Rep. Barney Frank’s comment about a 25% cut in overall defense spending will come true, but not in the baseline budget. Expect the wartime supplemental spending to plummet as troops come home from Iraq.

Some new predictions:

1. Obama’s cuts will hurt defense companies. Watch for Congress to follow with a nationalization plan. Many companies will go willingly.

2. Keep you eye out for more cuts to personnel programs. Obama’s attempt to cut VA funding by shifting $500 million in service-related medical costs to private insurance took me by surprise. I expected him to increase personnel benefits for military to lure away DoD voters from the Republicans. Therefore, it may be the Dems have written off military as permanently political adversaries.

3. Once congress gets a hold of the budget some pork will be added back in, but the administration must get its defense cuts in during the next two years. After that, the election cycle will begin anew and he’ll have to move back to the center to get reelected. He'll be counting America’s short memories.

We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

With that, I think it’s a good time to review some of the predictions I made since last fall:

3. Rep. Barney Frank’s comment about a 25% cut in overall defense spending will come true, but not in the baseline budget. Expect the wartime supplemental spending to plummet as troops come home from Iraq.

Some new predictions:

1. Obama’s cuts will hurt defense companies. Watch for Congress to follow with a nationalization plan. Many companies will go willingly.

2. Keep you eye out for more cuts to personnel programs. Obama’s attempt to cut VA funding by shifting $500 million in service-related medical costs to private insurance took me by surprise. I expected him to increase personnel benefits for military to lure away DoD voters from the Republicans. Therefore, it may be the Dems have written off military as permanently political adversaries.

3. Once congress gets a hold of the budget some pork will be added back in, but the administration must get its defense cuts in during the next two years. After that, the election cycle will begin anew and he’ll have to move back to the center to get reelected. He'll be counting America’s short memories.

We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Gates said it may be time for the Pentagon to more carefully review the planned weapons programs of the individual services to stop costly duplication....