FPI Fact Sheet: The Dangers of Deep Defense Cuts: What America’s Civilian and Military Leaders are Saying

October 12, 2011 | Foreign Policy Initiative

Unless Congress passes a law by mid-January 2012 that reduces the long-term federal deficit by more than $1.2 trillion, the U.S. Department of Defense will automatically face deep spending cuts over next 10 years—cuts that America’s civilian and military leaders have candidly described as “devastating” and “very high risk.”

The precarious state of the Pentagon’s future fiscal affairs is due to the Budget Control Act of 2011, the controversial August deal by which Congress and the President agreed to raise America’s debt limit.  As part of the bargain, the debt-limit deal immediately placed ceilings to cap the defense budget and other forms of discretionary spending—and the effect of these limits was to cut Pentagon spending over the next  decade by an estimated $350 billion to $500 billion.

That said, defense spending stands to be slashed even more severely if Congress fails to meet its deficit-cutting deadline of January 12, 2012.  In the worst-case scenario, the Budget Control Act’s so-called “trigger” provision would cut an additional $600 billion from the Pentagon’s 10-year budget.

To help Congress meet its January 2012 deadline, the debt-limit deal created the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, a temporary “super committee” of 12 lawmakers that has until Thanksgiving 2011 to hammer out a large-scale, long-term deficit reduction package.  Congress will then have the next month to debate and hold an up-or-down vote on the legislation.

The stakes couldn’t be higher for the Defense Department—and America’s long-term national security.  As illustrated by the quotes below, civilian leaders in the Executive Branch and Congress, military leaders in the U.S. Armed Forces, and presidential candidates have all voiced grave concerns about the dangers of deep defense cuts.

Table of Contents

Executive Branch

President Barack Obama

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta

General David Petraeus (ret.), Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew

Legislative Branch (Alphabetical Order)

Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA)

Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA)

Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ)

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)  

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO)

Congressman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA)

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI)

Congressman Allen West (R-FL)

Military Leaders

General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Admiral Michael Mullen, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

General Peter Chiarelli, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy

General Philip Breedlove, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

General Joseph Dunford, Assistant Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps

Presidential Candidates (Alphabetical Order)

Herman Cain, Former Businessman

Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the U.S House of Representatives

Mitt Romney, Former Governor of Massachusetts

Rick Santorum, Former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania 

Additional Defending Defense Resources

Suggested Reading

Executive Branch

 President Barack Obama

  • “Now, as Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than protecting our national security, and I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America’s interests around the world.”  (April 13, 2011)

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta

  • “Going forward, as we debate the proper size and role of the American military in the 21st century, we must remember that the American people and our partners across the globe are safer, more stable, and more prosperous because of our global leadership, and the strength of our military.”  (October 11, 2011)
  • “Given the nature of today’s security landscape, we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of past reductions in force that followed World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the fall of the Iron Curtain, which—to varying degrees, as a result of across the board cuts—weakened our military.  We must avoid, at all costs, a hollow military—one that lacks sufficient training and equipment to adapt to surprises and uncertainty, a defining feature of the security environment we confront.  We cannot and we must not repeat the mistakes of the past.”  (October 11, 2011)
  • “Congress must be a responsible partner in this effort.  They have as much responsibility for the defense of this country, as we in the Executive Branch.  This must be a partnership.  Republican and Democrat alike.  They must be a responsible partner in supporting a strong defense strategy that may not always include their favorite base or weapons system.  Congress, in particular, must prevent disastrous cuts from taking effect, particularly with the mechanism that was built into the budget control act known as ‘sequester’.  This mechanism would force defense cuts that would do catastrophic damage to our military and its ability to protect the country.  It would double the number of cuts that we confront, and it would damage our interests not only here, but around the world.  It would require a mindless approach of drastic cuts to both defense and domestic discretionary accounts.” (October 11, 2011)
  • “… [O]ur military must maintain its technological edge.  Over the past two decades, our military has made particularly striking advances in precision-guided weapons, unmanned systems, cyber and space technologies—but our advantages here could erode unless we maintain a robust industrial and science and technology base.  If we lose that base, it will impact on our ability to maintain a strong national defense—it’s that simple.”  (October 11, 2011)
  • Senator Lindsey Graham:  “If we pull that [sequestration] trigger, would we be shooting ourselves in the foot?”

Secretary Panetta:  “We’d be shooting ourselves in the head.”  (September 22, 2011)

  • “[D]efense is taking more than its share of the cuts.  We’re doing in excess of $450 billion in reductions….  [I]f you’re serious about dealing with the deficit, don’t go back to the discretionary account.  Pay attention to the two-thirds of the federal budget that is in large measure responsible for the size of the debt that we’re dealing with.”  (September 20, 2011)
  • “Even as we take on our share of the country’s efforts to achieve fiscal discipline, we still face the potentially devastating mechanism known as ‘sequester.’  So I’ve tried to make clear over the past month the roughly $1 trillion in cuts that would be forced by sequester would seriously weaken our military, and it would really make us unable to protect this nation from a range of security threats that we face.”  (September 20, 2011)
  • “If [Congress and the President] do the sequester, this kind of massive cut across the board which would literally double the number of cuts what we’re confronting—that would have devastating effects on our national defense….  Very simply, it would result in hollowing out the force.  It would terribly weaken our ability to respond to the threats in the world.  But more importantly, it would break faith with the troops and with their families.  And a volunteer army is absolutely essential to our national defense.  Any kind of cut like that would literally undercut our ability to put together the kind of strong national defense we have today.” (August 16, 2011)
  • “Sequester will not only impact our military strength, I think it will impact our economic strength as well.  Cancellation of weapon systems, construction projects, research activity would seriously cripple our industrial base, which would be unacceptable not only to me as Secretary of Defense but to our ability to be able to maintain the best defense system for the world.”  (August 4, 2011)
  • “It is that multitude of security challenges that makes me particularly concerned about the sequester mechanism that was contained in the debt-ceiling agreement.  This mechanism—this kind of doomsday mechanism that was built into the agreement—is designed so that it would only take effect if Congress fails to enact further measures to reduce the deficit.  But if it happened—and God willing, that would not be the case, but if it did happen—it would result in a further round of very dangerous cuts across the board, defense cuts that I believe would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families, and our military’s ability to protect the nation.”  (August 4, 2011)
  • “I do not believe—based on my long experience in government and working with the budget—that we have to choose between strong fiscal discipline and strong national defense.  I don’t deny that there are going to be tough decisions that have to be made and touch choices that have to be made.  But we owe it to our citizens to provide both strong fiscal discipline and a strong national defense.”  (June 9, 2011)
  • “[Defense spending] is by no means the cause of the deficits.”  (June 9, 2011)

General David Petraeus (ret.), Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

  • “As our nation contemplates difficult budget decisions, I know that our leaders will remember that our people, our men and women in uniform, are our military, and that taking care of them and their families must be our paramount objective.’’ (August 31, 2011)
  • “… [W]e have relearned since 9/11 the timeless lesson that we don’t always get to fight the wars for which we are most prepared or most inclined.  Given that reality, we will need to maintain the full-spectrum capability that we have developed over this last decade of conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.”  (August 31, 2011)

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

  • If the base Pentagon budget were cut by 10 percent—“which would be disastrous” for the military—that would only be $50 billion of a $1.4 trillion deficit, “We are not the problem.” (June 30, 2011)
  • “…. [A] smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and be able to do fewer things.” (May 24, 2011)
  • “If we are going to reduce the resources and the size of the U.S. military, people need to make conscious choices about what the implications are for the security of the country, as well as for the variety of military operations we have around the world if lower priority missions are scaled back or eliminated.  They need to understand what it could mean for a smaller pool of troops and their families if America is forced into a protracted land war again—yes, the kind no defense secretary should recommend anytime soon, but one we may not be able to avoid.  To shirk this discussion of risks and consequences—and the hard decisions that must follow—I would regard as managerial cowardice.” (May 24, 2011)
  • “If history—and religion—teach us anything, it is that there will always be evil in the world, people bent on aggression, oppression, satisfying their greed for wealth and power and territory, or determined to impose an ideology based on the subjugation of others and the denial of liberty to men and women.  More than any other Secretary of Defense, I have been a strong advocate of soft power—of the critical importance of diplomacy and development as fundamental components of our foreign policy and national security.  But make no mistake, the ultimate guarantee against the success of aggressors, dictators, and terrorists in the 21st century, as in the 20th, is hard power—the size, strength, and global reach of the United States military.

“Beyond the current wars, our military credibility, commitment, and presence are required to sustain alliances, to protect trade routes and energy supplies, and to deter would-be adversaries from making the kind of miscalculations that so often lead to war.

“All of these things happen mostly out of sight and out of mind to the average American, and thus are taken for granted.  But they all depend on a properly armed, trained and funded American military, which cannot be taken for granted.”  (May 22, 2011)

  • “Indeed, throughout our history, Americans have periodically been tempted to crouch behind the nation’s borders, feeling secure surrounded by the vast seas, in the belief that remote events elsewhere in the world need not bother us.  That approach has repeatedly led to disastrous results, whether it was the failure to manage rising and aggressive powers in Europe in the first half of the 20th century or failing to deal with the rise of a violent terrorist network that would strike us here at home on 9/11.  The lessons of history tell us we must not allow our frustrations to cause us to withdraw from the world or diminish our ability or our determination to deal with the threats and challenges on the horizon.” (May 14, 2011)
  • “… [M]y greatest fear is that in economic tough times that people will see the defense budget as the place to solve the nation’s deficit problems, to find money for other parts of the government….   And as I look around the world and see a more unstable world, more failed and failing states, countries that are investing heavily in their militaries—as I look at places like Iran and North Korea and elsewhere around the world—as I look at the new kinds of threats emerging from cyber to precision ballistic and cruise missiles and so on—my greatest worry is that we will do to the defense budget what we have done four times before.

“And that is, slash it in an effort to find some kind of a dividend to put the money someplace else.  I think that would be disastrous in the world environment we see today and what we’re likely to see in the years to come.”  (August 9, 2010)

Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew

  • “As a result of the size of the [Budget Control Act’s sequestration] cuts, and the manner in which they may be imposed, DoD [the Department of Defense] would almost certainly be forced to furlough large numbers of its civilian works.  Training would have to be curtailed, the force reduced, and purchases of weapons would have to be cut dramatically.  In short, there could be significant impacts on our military capabilities and on our ability to execute the current national security strategy….  Reductions of this magnitude, imposed in this manner, could pose a significant risk to national security.”  (September 15, 2011)

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Legislative Branch (Alphabetical Order)

Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA), Member of the House Homeland Security Committee

  • “We don’t have enough Marines.  We don’t have enough brigades in the Army.  We don’t have enough ships in the Navy.  Or enough wings in the Air Force.  We need to be building our military, not tearing it down.  Our military is stretched to the limits.  Families are being destroyed because of multiple deployments and our military is tired in the personnel, tired in the equipment.  We need to be spending more on the military—which is the constitutional function of the federal government under the original intent.”  (October 5, 2011)

Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness

  • “[T]he final [myth] is this, that we can make these kinds of drastic cuts without a substantial risk to our future.” (September 8, 2011)
  • “As we consider our deficit, federal spending and the impact on our defense budget, I believe we should be asking four questions:  first, what are the threats we face?  Second, what resources do our combatant commanders need to protect us against those threats?  Third, what do these resources cost and how can we obtain them as efficiently as possible?  And, fourth, what can we afford, and what are the risks to our nation if we do not supply those resources?  I believe many in Congress and the White House have been asking only the portion of question four that asked how much they want to spend and have been ignoring the other questions almost entirely.”  (July 26, 2011)

Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ), Member of the House Armed Services Committee

  • “I’m convinced that if this so-called Super Committee fails and sequestration is triggered, it will mean undoing the greatest military force in the history of humanity. And potentially the beginning of our financial ruin as well, because the military creates all kinds of ripples in our economy and the high paying jobs that result. If there is any true stimulus that the government can make, it is to keep this country strong and to invest in the men and women who give everything they have for all of us. Not only do these cuts jeopardize our national security, of course they endanger our economy.”  (October 5, 2011)

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Armed Services Committee                      

  • “I will introduce legislation that will protect the defense department from devastating cuts…  If [the Super Committee] fails, don’t destroy the Defense Department.”  (September 25, 2011)
  • “I’m willing to do things that will be controversial to make the Department of Defense budget sustainable and more business-like.  But what I’m not willing to do, as a Ronald Reagan Republican, is put on the table cuts in defense that would say to the country and the world at large, ‘defense is a secondary concern when it comes to Washington spending.’ ” (September 8, 2011)
  • “My view of this debt ceiling debate is that the Republican party agreed to a $600 billion defense cut as part of a trigger if we couldn’t control domestic spending—which is a philosophical shift from the Reagan party that we need to push back against.” (September 8, 2011)

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Republican Whip and Member of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction

  • “Defense is not the cause of the problem and therefore it cannot be seen as the solution to deficit reduction.” (September 8, 2011)
  • “You set a defense budget based on your needs and requirements for national security, not based on some artificial percentage or number because of deficit reduction.” (September 8, 2011)
  • “[D]efense has already taken huge hits—especially in the last three years, but really over the last several years….  In a three-and-a-half trillion dollar budget, two-thirds of which is entitlements, there is enough slop in the system that you can find a trillion and half in savings [over the next ten years], without deeply cutting into benefits, or totally readjusting how these programs work—although they will require some adjustment.  People kid about waste, fraud, and abuse, but it’s real.  And if we have the courage to face that, we can find the savings without forcing additional discretionary cuts, which, of course, would implicate defense spending….  So my point of view is that defense should not have any additional cuts.” (September 8, 2011)

Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Member of the House Armed Services Committee

  • “The Armed Services Committee expects at least twenty-five percent of the civilian workforce to be furloughed if this sequestration takes place.  And according to Secretary Leon Panetta, at least a million jobs would be lost.  He calls this a doomsday mechanism.  So in closing, deeper cuts to our military would be so detrimental to our national security it’s horrible to contemplate.  There’s no doubt that we can find efficiencies in a large budget like the Department of Defense has.  And I am a fiscal conservative.  But we don’t want to cut capabilities.  That’s what I’m concerned about.”  (October 5, 2011)

Congressman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee

  • “… [G]lobal leadership is heavy and expensive.  I understand that.  But our military’s positive role as a defender of the global peace is undeniable.” (September 12, 2011)
  • “As we begin to emerge from a long, tough fight, this should be the time to reset and rebuild our military.  Instead, we are lowering our gloves.

“At a time when our military is falling into disrepair, we have laid out over half a trillion dollars in projected cuts to Pentagon spending.  I cannot understate how dangerous these defense cuts have become.” (September 12, 2011)

  • “50% of the mandatory cuts associated with the trigger are from the defense budget.  That is a deeply unbalanced number, with defense accounting for less than 20% of federal spending.” (September 12, 2011)
  • “Admiral Greenert, our incoming Chief of Naval Operations, recently testified that he needed around 400 ships to meet the Navy’s broad set of missions.

“Well, we had a nearly 550 ship fleet in 1992; today we are projected to drop to 250.  At the end of the Cold War, we had 76 Army combat brigades.  Today we have 45.  We had 82 [U.S. Air Force] fighter squadrons, today we have 39.” (September 12, 2011)

  • “A Marine general recently testified in front of my committee that if America had another military emergency, they could only respond to the Central Command area of operations.  That’s it.  In short, if something happened in the Pacific, don’t bother calling the Marines.” (September 12, 2011)
  • “I believe in peace, and I pray for peace. But, like General Marshall, I am clear about how peace is sustained.  Stability rests on the shoulders of the American military.” (April 28, 2011)
  • “For the past two years, the Pentagon has suffered cut after damaging cut, killing off vital military modernization programs and atrophying our military’s end strength.  Yet after pilfering our national security budget to pay for more entitlement programs and irresponsible social spending, President Obama announced plans to cut a jaw-dropping $400 billion from the defense budget over a 12-year period.” (April 28, 2011)
  • “The defense cuts of the recent past, present, and future will weaken our nation, leave us vulnerable to attack and hasten in an unmistakable era of American decline.” (April 28, 2011)
  • “There are reasonable ways to cut waste in the defense budget.  Oversight and acquisition reform can help us spend defense dollars smartly.  But carving out critical capabilities while our nation is at war is simply wrongheaded.” (April 28, 2011)

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Committee on Foreign Relations

  • “The kinds of cuts being talked about would endanger our national security and our ability to defend ourselves and our allies.  There’s already been around $300 billion of cuts that have been approved or discussed.  If nothing happens with the super debt committee, it could reach a trillion dollars, which would be devastating.”  (September 15, 2011)
  • “We have to understand that our defense spending is not the driver of national debt and that these significant kinds of cuts that people are talking about in the trillions would be devastating to our national defense.” (September 15, 2011)
  • “Now, I am a strong advocate of cutting unnecessary and wasteful spending, but the defense budget is not the biggest driver of our debt—it accounts for roughly twenty percent of our annual federal spending.  By contrast, entitlement programs swallow more than half the budget and they are the main drivers of our debt.” (September 13, 2011)
  • “The Pentagon already faced sharp cuts.  During his last two years in office, Secretary of Defense Gates cut or curtailed procurement programs that, if taken to completion, would have cost $300 billion.  This summer, the President and congressional leaders agreed to cut another $350 billion from the defense budget over the next ten years.

“Those cuts by themselves alone are worrisome enough but what is more worrisome is what’s looming:  In the worst case scenario, if the so-called Debt Super Committee doesn’t reach any deal at all, the Pentagon could stand to be slashed by more than $1 trillion over ten years.

“Our new secretary of defense—himself is a well-known budget hawk – has warned that cutbacks of this scale would have a “devastating effect on our national defense.”  (September 13, 2011)

  • “If America refuses to lead, who will combat international outlaws?  Who will stop terrorists and weapons proliferators?  Who will deal with the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs?  The rising disorder in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia?  The growing challenge from China which seeks to dominate East Asia, but won’t even let its own people use Google?”  (September 13, 2011)
  • “The American armed forces have been one of the greatest forces of good in the world during the past century.  They stopped Nazism and Communism and other evils such as Serbian ethnic-cleansing.  They have helped birthed democracies from Germany to Iraq.  They have delivered relief supplies, and performed countless tasks in service to our nation.

“All they have ever asked for in return is that we provide them the tools to get the job done—and that we look after them and their families.  They have never failed us in our time of need.

“We must not fail them now.  We must maintain a strong national defense.”  (September 13, 2011)

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget

  • “Defense spending as a share of the budget has fallen from around 25 percent thirty years ago to around 20 percent today.  Like all categories of government spending, defense spending should be executed with greater efficiency and accountability.  But responsible budgeting must never lose sight of the fact that the first responsibility of the federal government is to provide for the defense of the nation.”  (April 5, 2011)
  • “Unlike defense, the share of the budget that goes to these entitlement programs is growing rapidly.  In 1970, these major entitlements consumed about 20 percent of the budget—a number that has grown to over 40 percent today.  Unless action is taken to reform these programs, they will continue to crowd out all other national priorities until they break the federal budget.”  (April 5, 2011)

Congressman Allen West (R-FL), Member of the House Armed Services Committee

  • “Not just so much from a strategic level, but also from a tactical level, through the operational level, back up to the strategic level, we have to go back and start developing a strategy first and foremost before we start looking to the military and basing the military upon the budget, or basing the military upon the numbers.” (September 8, 2011)

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Military Leaders

General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  • “National security didn’t cause the debt crisis nor will it solve it.”  (July 27, 2011)
  • “Based on the difficulty of achieving the $400 billion cut [to defense spending], I believe $800 billion would be extraordinarily difficult and very high risk.”  (July 26, 2011)
  • “I’m a student of history, as you know, and I’ve studied the post-Vietnam period, I’ve studied the post-Desert Storm, [and the] Desert Shield period.  What makes this period different is we’re doing all this while we’re still actively engaged in conflict and we have young men and women in harm’s way.  And that adds a degree of complexity and a degree of uncertainty that I think we can’t discount.”  (July 26, 2011)

Admiral Michael Mullen, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  • “Ten years of war have not broken the all-volunteer force, but drastic budget measures that adversely affect the lives and livelihoods of our people very well might.” (September 20, 2011)
  • “[W]e also, to a one, share your concerns about the devastating impact of further automatic cuts should the Congress fail to enact additional deficit-reduction measures….  [T]here is nothing discretionary about the things we [in the Department of Defense] do every day for our fellow citizens.  From the two wars we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the support we provide our NATO allies in Libya, from disaster relief missions like those in Haiti and Japan, to the training and exercises in joint combined operations we conduct around the world, the U.S. military remains a linchpin to defending our national interests.  To loosen that pin unnecessarily through debilitating and capricious cuts—nearly double to those already in the offing—puts at grave risk not only our ability to accomplish the missions we have been assigned, but those we have yet to be assigned as well.”  (August 4, 2011)
  • “At about 4.5% of GDP, the return on U.S. defense spending has been immense and historic: preventing world war between great powers, securing the global commons and the free flow of international trade and natural resources, combating terrorism across the globe, and protecting the American people and our allies.  However, our operations have come with stresses and strains as well as costs to our readiness.  For this reason, if we are to continue to execute the missions set out by our strategy, we must recognize that returning from war and resetting the force is costly and will require several years of continued investment.  Congressional support is required for our forces, their families, their equipment and training, and our military infrastructure to ensure the success of our ongoing efforts and for us to be ready to respond to new and emerging security challenges.”  (February 16, 2011)

General Peter Chiarelli, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

  • “While there is great appeal to pursuing the easy gains made by making cuts to force structure, there is significant risk associated with making arbitrary top line cuts without doing what is necessary to ensure what remains is a balanced, albeit smaller force capable of modest expansion should the need arise.”  (July 26, 2011)
  • “These wars have also taken a toll on our equipment. Continued funding is critical to ensuring the necessary reset of our vehicles and equipment; as well as to ensure we are able to procure the right systems that are both affordable and sustainable for the next 20 years.”  (July 26, 2011)
  • “It is imperative that as we begin to draw down forces, we do not sacrifice our combat experience and unit cohesion by cutting large numbers of soldiers arbitrarily.”  (July 26, 2011)
  • “Whatever reduction are made carry risk, and with reductions we will not be able to do as much tomorrow as we are able to do today.” (July 26, 2011)

Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy

  • “If we have a reduction of a kind that was passed around here—$400 billion, $886 billion—without a comprehensive strategic review—a fundamental look at what we were asking our forces to do, without a change in activity—as I described, we won’t be able to meet the global force management plan today.”  (July 26, 2011)

General Philip Breedlove, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

  • “A $400 billion cut would force us to constrict our force.  Beyond $400 billion, we would have to go into a fundamental restructure of what our nation expects from our Air Force.”  (July 26, 2011)
  • “Any stability in these kinds of budgets are helpful.  In fact, when we look at how we buy in space and other large procurement programs, the ability to put stability into a purchasing program allows the subcontractors and others to predict and count on and then produce in good quantity.  So stability in budget is always helpful as we plan for these types of things.”  (July 26, 2011)

General Joseph Dunford, Assistant Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps

  • “Within $400 billion [in defense spending cuts] we would have some challenges in taking those cuts.  If they were to exceed $400 billion we would start to have to make some fundamental changes in the capacity of the Marine Corps.”  (July 26, 2011)
  • “If we were forced to take cuts, they would absolutely come in the form of capacity.”  (July 26, 2011)
  • “[Defense cuts need to be made] in a measured way so that we don’t end up at the end of the day with a force that’s hollow in the future.”  (July 26, 2011)

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Presidential Candidates (Alphabetical Order)

Herman Cain, Former Businessman

  • “National security and protecting our borders from foreign invaders is something we as a nation really can’t put a price on.” (July 21, 2011)

Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the U.S House of Representatives

  • “America’s national security budgets must be based on fact-based assessments of what is needed to keep Americans safe, not on arbitrary political considerations.  Our enemies and competitors will not cease being aggressive while we sort out our fiscal problems.”  (August 1, 2011)

Mitt Romney, Former Governor of Massachusetts

  • “American strength rises from a strong economy, a strong defense, and the enduring strength of our values….  As President, on Day One, I will focus on rebuilding America’s economy.  I will reverse President Obama’s massive defense cuts.  Time and again, we have seen that attempts to balance the budget by weakening our military only lead to a far higher price, not only in treasure, but in blood.” (October 7, 2011)
  • “My view is we cannot and should not shrink the scale of the United States Department of Defense budget.”  (October 6, 2011)
  • “This is the first time in my memory that massive defense cuts were proposed without any reference to the missions that would be foreclosed and the risks to which our country and its men and women in uniform would be exposed.” (August 30, 2011)
  • “[The call for deep defense cuts and isolationism] flows from the conviction that if we are weak, tyrants will choose to be weak as well; that if we could just talk more, engage more, pass more U.N. resolutions, that peace will break out.  That may be what they think in that Harvard faculty lounge, but it’s not what they know on the battlefield.” (August 30, 2011)
  • “20 percent [of federal spending on defense], and given what’s happening in the world, we should not reduce our commitment to national security.  In particular, we should not cut the number of our men and women in uniform!” (June 1, 2011)

Rick Santorum, Former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania

  • “Earlier this month the President suggested deep cuts to our military.  Wrong signal, wrong effort, and wrong time.  Now is the time to not only be increasing our military preparedness but to finish the task of a comprehensive missile defense system.  Nothing is so helpful to negotiations toward peace as overwhelming strength and defense.  To ignore this lesson in the pursuit of utopian ideas of a nuclear free world is both irresponsible and dangerous.” (April 28, 2011)

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Additional Defending Defense Resources

  • Warning: Hollow Force Ahead! – Defending Defense project – American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Initiative, Heritage Foundation – July 21, 2011
  • Panetta’s Duty – FPI Director William Kristol and Executive Director Jamie Fly – The Weekly Standard – June 11, 2011
  • Indefensible – FPI Executive Director Jamie Fly and John Noonan – National Review – December 13, 2010

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Suggested Reading

  • No More Cuts – AEI’s Gary Schmitt and Tom Donnelly – The Weekly Standard – October 10, 2011
  • Defining Defense Down – AEI’s Gary Schmitt and Tom Donnelly – The Weekly Standard – August 24, 2011

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