The federal government has no higher constitutional duty than to safeguard the security of the United States. Any other function performed by Washington would quickly become pointless if our nation were unable to defend itself from foreign or domestic enemies.
And so it is alarming that our national defense may face severe, automatic cuts if a so-called "super committee" in Congress does not come to an agreement on reducing federal deficits.
The super committee has until just before Thanksgiving to propose deficit reductions of about $1.5 trillion. If the committee deadlocks and does not submit any recommendations, or if Congress rejects whatever proposals the committee does submit, then automatic spending cuts of $1.2 trillion would kick in starting with the 2013 budget year. The trouble is, half of those cuts would have to come from defense.
There is surely a considerable amount of wasteful and unwise spending by the Pentagon, just as there is throughout the federal government. It is good to root out waste wherever it is found.
But there is bipartisan agreement that the huge cuts with which our national defense could be hit would go well beyond just reducing waste. They would compromise our nation's very ability to defend itself.
A recent report by Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee found that the big possible cuts to defense spending would, among other things, harm our country's vital ability to fight more than one war at a time.
Of course, we don't want to have to fight even one war, much less two or more. But war does not always come at a "convenient time," and the United States needs to be able to face multiple enemies at once.
More specifically, the Republican report stated that the cuts to defense would:
• Reduce the combined size of the Army and Marine Corps from about 771,000 troops to 571,000. That is a smaller force than we had when our nation was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.
• Reduce the number of naval vessels from 288 to 238.
• And reduce the number of Air Force fighter aircraft from about 2,000 to about 1,500.
Republicans are not the only ones who are seriously concerned about major cuts to defense spending. President Obama's defense secretary, Leon Panetta, also recently noted that the cuts would limit military training, reduce the size of our armed forces and sharply reduce the purchase of weaponry.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said during a hearing in Congress that the cuts stand "a good chance of breaking us -- and breaking faith with this all-volunteer force."
Cutting spending will not be easy, and it will not be painless. But it should not be done in a way that hurts our country's defense capabilities.