Obama's Strategic Failure

Effective national strategy aligns military, diplomatic, political and economic capabilities to achieving clearly articulated security objectives.  This week President Obama toured Asia and reiterated the United States’ commitment to Asia.  He also expanded critical security alliances, most notably agreeing to station US Marines in Australia.  Meanwhile, at home, the clock is expiring on the super committee process which would all but guarantee an additional round of cuts to the Pentagon of up to $600 billion.  This would bring the total cuts for 10 year at the Pentagon to more than a trillion dollars.  To put these cuts into perspective, Obama’s own Secretary of Defense has repeatedly and unreservedly declared that they would ‘hollow out’ the US military.  A major disconnect between this Administration’s military and diplomatic commitments and its economic priorities has emerged.  Clearly national strategy escapes this President and his Administration.  

Expanding US security commitments while simultaneously allowing massive reductions to our military’s capability and effectiveness represents the beginning of a strategic disaster for the United States.  This failure is made starker by the fact that the Obama Administration played almost no role in the super committee process.  It would be one thing if they engaged in the committee process to help find ways to maintain funding for the Pentagon, but they have done the opposite and essentially stayed out of the process.  This dearth of leadership has emerged as a pattern for this Administration, and the eventual GOP nominee would do well in the general election articulating an alternative approach of robust leadership both domestically and globally.  

I support an enhanced US presence and commitment in Asia, but this requires the funding of a military that can provide the backbone to those commitments.  Expanding security alliances with Australia and Japan is central to defending US interests in the region, and developing our security relationships with other states in Southeast Asia will all help shape a peaceful rise of China.  However, to make these commitments while allowing unsustainable cuts to our military budgets is short sighted and dangerous.