Analyst's note: This article certainly helps to put things into perspective. Please read the full original article and then ask yourself if this is what you really want. Remember, you just may get it ... in more ways than one ... our enemies do have a say in our national defense.
By decade’s end, the United States will be spending more to service its debt annually than on national defense. At that point, if current plans remain in place, the country will be spending only 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense -- a full half percentage lower than during the Clinton administration, which, in turn, was the lowest level ever for the country since before World War II. In the meantime, entitlement and welfare spending will have galloped ahead, dominating the federal budget. This is the future the current administration apparently wants. And it has consequences for the nation’s security.
In the years since Barack Obama took office, the United States has crept away from its global role, seeking to “end” rather than “win” the conflicts in which we are engaged, deferring management of regional conflicts to local powers, and spending more time courting problem countries like Russia and China than working with our long-time allies. Al Qaeda has been on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but has flourished in Yemen and Somalia. The president made explicit his view that the United States is no more exceptional than, say, Greece, and has governed accordingly.
[....] What’s the common theme? Resources and credibility. We have the world’s greatest military to win wars and deter others. If sequestration happens next year, the defense budget will lose over a trillion dollars in planned spending over the next decade: the Army will be the smallest it has been since World War II, the Navy will shrink to a level not seen since before World War I. And our pilots will fly fewer fighters than ever in the history of the Air Force and planes typically will be older than the pilots flying them. Decline is a choice that turns threat into reality.