Budget sequestration is putting pressure on the U.S. military’s ability to respond to Russian moves in Eastern Europe, the U.S. commander of NATO forces on the continent told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday.
Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove said he has asked for a review of budget cuts that have led to the decline of forces based on the continent in response to recent Russian aggression against Ukraine and threats to other nations, including NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — all of which were once part of the Soviet Union.
“Sequestration will make all of the services get smaller. As the services get smaller there is pressure on overseas forces,” he said.
But he doesn’t expect any boost in U.S. forces in Europe to come out of the review. “I’m a realist. We are in an age where our budgets are going down, not up,” he said.
Tensions in Eastern Europe, combined with the growing threat in the Middle East from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, have revitalized efforts by pro-defense lawmakers to reverse the automatic cuts to Pentagon spending mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011.
A budget deal last year provided partial relief from the cuts for fiscal 2015, by extending their reach into 2023. But some lawmakers want to eliminate the sequestration requirement altogether.
“We continue to ask more and more of our military, yet their funding continues to be cut. This is not sustainable and must be addressed,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., said Monday in a statement to the House Rules Committee.
