After Hagel: How Budget Caps Are Bankrupting America’s Military (From Forbes)

Like a bankrupt enterprise, America’s military no longer has the resources necessary to meet its core commitments.  The culprit is an arcane budget process called sequestration that threatens to cut defense spending $55 billion each year through the end of the decade.  Now, $55 billion doesn’t sound like a huge hit to a defense budget that typically exceeds tens times that amount, but the problem is that all the cuts are coming out of readiness and modernization.  In other words, the twin pillars of U.S. military power — training and technology — are being eviscerated.  If that pattern persists much longer, the joint force may lose the nation’s next big war — thanks to an arcane budget mechanism that most voters have never even heard of.  I have written a commentary for Forbes explaining why that you can read here.