“Extraordinarily difficult and very high risk.” That’s how General Martin Dempsey, the Army’s chief of staff and Obama’s pick to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bluntly described proposals by the president and certain lawmakers to cut national security spending by anywhere from $400 billion to $1 trillion or more over the next decade. 

During his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, General Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the nation’s four military services had already begun to examine the possible impact of Obama’s April 2011 proposal to cut yet another $400 billion from the Department of Defense’s so-called “baseline” budget.