Gates Gives Warning of Hollowing Out Defense

Robert Gates, who next month will relinquish his duties as Secretary of Defense and retire, has in recent days been sounding a warning not to systematically reduce the Pentagon budget to deep, which would hamper the U.S. military power for decades to come.

The persistent and chronic federal debt is leading many advocates to reduce the federal debt burden, and that the Pentagon needs to reduce its spending considerably.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking before the American Enterprise Institute stated, "For starters, I have long believed-and I still do-that the defense budget, however large it may be, is not he cause of this country's fiscal woes. However, as a matter of simple arithmetic and political reality, the Department of Defense must be part of the solution."

The Department of Defense needs to make major changes on how it allocates resources, but a hollowing out of the Defense Department to meet domestic constituencies will only reverberate back to the U.S. as was the case after World War II, for which the U.S. paid dearly in the early stages of the Cold War.

A detailed and thought provoking process needs to take place at the Pentagon, and not short sided reductions to satisfy domestic concerns. If it is the latter, the U.S. will again regret its actions, but the real victims will be the military, as was the case during the early stages of the Korean War.

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