Since the end of World War II, the overriding premise of American grand strategy has been that if we as a country want peace and prosperity at home, we must have a military sufficiently dominant to deter major threats, police the international commons, and, when necessary, win the wars we wage. Although not cheap, such a strategy provided the underpinning for six decades of remarkable prosperity and success all across the globe. The total defense budget has increased since 2001 only in the sense that the country paid for fighting two extended wars. The core defense budget—the cost of raising, training, and equipping the military—has barely grown. As a percentage of the GDP, the core defense budget has risen from 3 percent in 2000 to 3.5 percent today, with much of that change coming from increases in personnel and health costs associated with an all-volunteer force.
The president's proposed budgets call for an ever-increasing piece of the federal pie to go to domestic programs and a decreasing amount to national defense. The Obama administration has already flattened out the defense budget this year, while domestic spending has exploded; in last year's stimulus, virtually every federal program got significant additional money except defense. We have today an aging and shrinking Air Force and Navy, an Army that is overstretched, reserve forces that are far too "active" in their rate of deployment, and too few dollars to rebuild and modernize. And if the Obama domestic agenda is implemented, discretionary funds available to fund those who "fight our country's battles/ In the air, on land, and sea" will shrink to a level at which maintaining the dominant military we have become accustomed to since the end of the Cold War will almost certainly be a thing of the past. Indeed, the Obama administration's projected budgets have the defense burden shrinking to less than 3 percent of GDP in the decade ahead. A level not seen since before World War II.
It's far from clear that the U.S. military can withstand another eight years of flat or declining budgets and remain the preeminent global force it is today, continuing to spare us the costs that come with a world in which there is increasing anarchy and less order as American military power recedes.