We shouldn't gut defense. A central question of our budget debates is how much we allow growing social spending to crowd out the military and, in effect, force the United States into a dangerous, slow-motion disarmament.
People who see military cuts as an easy way to reduce budget deficits forget that this has already occurred. From the late 1980s to 2010, America's armed forces dropped from 2.1 million men and women to about 1.4 million. The downsizing — the "peace dividend" from the end of the Cold War — was not undone by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 1990, the U.S. Army had 172 combat battalions, the U.S. Navy 546 ships and the U.S. Air Force 4,355 fighters; today, those numbers are 100 battalions, 288 ships and 1,990 fighters.
True, Iraq and Afghanistan raised defense budgets. As these wars conclude, lower spending will shrink overall deficits. But the savings will be smaller than many expect because the costs — though considerable — were smaller than they thought. From fiscal 2001 to 2011, these wars cost $1.3 trillion, says the Congressional Budget Office. That's 4.4 percent of the $29.7 trillion of federal spending over those years. In 2011, the cost was about $159 billion, 12 percent of the deficit ($1.3 trillion) and 4 percent of total spending ($3.6 trillion).