Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's proposed military spending cuts should not be made on the backs of our service members.
Hagel presented a military budget to Congress on Monday, which he said "recognizes the reality of the magnitude of our fiscal challenges."
Proposed cuts include trimming the Army to 450,000 members - the smallest number since before World War II - while reallocating funds toward cyberwarfare and special operations and making significant compensation reductions.
At half a trillion dollars annually, the budget for 2015 and subsequent years remains a mammoth of governmental expenditures. But its cuts are far less dramatic than the automatic reductions to the military budget that will result from the looming sequester.
The cuts shift our military efforts away from massive, costly ground wars like Iraq and Afghanistan toward nimbler, modern efforts.
The reality remains, however, that even with budgetary constraints, service members should take precedence in our military spending.
The cuts will require congressional approval, which will prove difficult ahead of the mid-term elections in November. Hawkish organizations and veteran groups have already reacted vehemently to the proposal - though for far different reasons.
Detractors, like former Vice President Dick Cheney, claim the cuts to personnel and some equipment programs will limit the ability of the U.S. military to respond to emergent threats "for generations."
Though cuts in personnel are significant, with our engagement in the Middle East waning, the reduction is reasonable. Retiring some equipment programs, like the A-10 "Warthog" attack jet, is sensible.
Assertions that these cuts will leave us open to attack or unable to defend ourselves are unfounded. Our military spending will still dwarf any other nation, and our military will remain larger than that of China, the United Kingdom and Russia combined.
What does invite criticism, and rightly so, is how this proposal handles personnel spending.
Personnel costs amount to some 50 percent of the Pentagon's spending, making it an easy target for reductions. As Defense Department spokesman Admiral John Kirby told The Wall Street Journal, "We ultimately must slow the growth of military pay and compensation."
The proposal cuts subsidies to military base commissaries, which will effectively raise the costs of groceries and related goods for servicemen and women.
Active and retired military members will be required to pay more toward their healthcare costs, an ironically cruel proposition for those who put the entirety of their health on the line for the nation.
Further, pay raises for personnel would be limited to 1 percent, far lower than the rising cost of living. Pay rates would freeze for officers and generals. Housing subsidies would also be cut.
Though military members, particularly those living on base, receive benefits that greatly reduce their cost of living, this seems justified given the scale of their sacrifices.
The first peacetime budget in the past 13 years, this proposal will set a powerful precedent for the direction of our military, financially and culturally.
Shifting away from war-prone policies, massive ground invasions and unjustifiably expensive equipment programs will likely sell well to war-weary Americans. And it should. If the aftermath of 9/11 has taught us anything, it should be the treachery of war.
But while the government realigns its military priorities, it should not shift focus away from our servicemen and women.
The military and our country are at a turning point. With our longest war ending, and a monumental quagmire beginning to fade from memory, we must choose how to forge forward.
Modernizing and reallocating to meet the demands of a changing world is realistic and reasonable, but not at the cost of those who have, and continue to, give so much.
email: editorial@ubspectrum.com
