Patrick J. Buchanan: What Must America Defend?

For a change, we need to be honest with the president, with the Congress, as well as with the American people about the consequences of cutting the defense budged, said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his valedictory policy address to the American Enterprise Institute. A smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and do fewer things. Gates seeks to ignite a debate the country seems reluctant to have. With a federal budget running out of balance by 10 percent of gross domestic product, what are we Americans willing to sacrifice? What are we willing to forgo? What are we willing to cut? The biggest budget items are Social Security, Medicare and Defense. To Democrats, the first two are untouchables. To most Republicans, defense is off the table. Indeed, the likelihood is that any budget deal to which both parties agree will contain escape clauses to enable Congress to avoid the painful decisions, and kick the can up the road. Consider the situation our US military faces: The useful life of the planes, ships, missiles, guns and armor that date to the Ronald Reagan buildup of the 1980's is coming to an end, and the cost of replacement weapons is much greater. A fleet of 2,440 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, for example, will cost over $1 trillion. While we no longer face a Soviet Union with nuclear and conventional forces equal to our own, US commitments have not been reduced, but augmented since the end of the Cold War. Six Warsaw Pact nations were brought into NATO, along with three republics of the old Soviet Union.