P-resident Obama and Secretary of Defense Gates have decided to join in the fiscal austerity craze by slashing defense spending. Not only will $78 billion be cut from the Pentagon budget, but the number of active duty troops will be reduced. As proven recently by the revelation of a Chinese stealth fighter program, the Islamo Fascists are hardly the only threat that exists on the horizon. The Chinese military buildup would tend to argue against the idea of an American reduction in military strength. The Chinese aside, North Korea and Iran count as potential military threats. There is also always the unknown, the military crisis that explodes out of the blue.

Obama’s plan to cut military spending in an increasingly dangerous world seems reminiscent of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s reduction in military spending in the 1930s or Jimmy Carter’s creation of the “hollow military” in the 1970s. In each case, weakness invited aggression by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, respectively. The world was fortunate that Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan arose to respectively clean up the mistakes of Baldwin and Carter.

Obama and Gates place not only the United States but world peace in deadly peril. Congress should greet these proposals for military reductions with great skepticism. This sort of thing never ends well.