Healing the Wounded Giant. Maintaining Military Preeminence while Cutting the Defense Budget (Brookings)
www.brookings.edu/research/books/2013/healing-the-wounded-giant
Barack Obama may have survived a tenuous economy and a bitter political campaign to secure another four-year term as president, but major partisan debate and division remain. As a Democratic White House and a (majority) Republican House of Representatives tangle perilously close to a “fiscal cliff,” vital priorities hang in the balance. In this, the newest entry in Brookings’ long line of defense budget analyses, Michael O’Hanlon considers the best balance between fiscal responsibility and national security in a period of continued economic stress.
O’Hanlon believes that savings in the range of what Obama proposed in 2012 are the right goal for defense cost reductions in the coming years. He explains why cuts of the magnitude required by sequestration, and those suggested by the Bowles-Simpson and the Rivlin-Domenici plans for greater fiscal health, are too deep on strategic grounds, particularly in light of America’s rebalancing toward Asia and ongoing turbulence in the Middle East.