In February, Defense secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sounded a cautionary note at a congressional hearing on the defense budget. “We shrink from our global security responsibilities at our peril,” Gates warned members of Congress. “Retrenchment brought about by short-sighted cuts could well lead to costlier and more tragic consequences later, indeed, as they always have in the past.”

Mullen also argued that the Defense budget should not be lowered. “Cuts can reasonably only go so far without hollowing the force,” Mullen said. “In my view, then, this proposed budget builds on the balance we started to achieve last year and represents the best of both fiscal responsibility and sound national security.”