McKeon will blast Obama’s defense policy - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

McKeon will blast Obama’s defense policy

The House Armed Services Committee’s ranking Republican will lay into President Obama’s national security strategy in a Thursday speech.

“A defense budget in decline portends an America in decline,” Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon of California will say in a speech to be delivered to the Heritage Foundation, according to an advance copy obtained by Military Times. “This is an outcome we cannot accept. America in decline is not the type of change the American people signed up for, nor is it a change we should believe in.”

In the speech, McKeon calls for a bigger defense budget — he does not give a specific amount — and warns of a “capability gap” that could “lead to hollow contingency plans and could embolden adversaries.”

The $708 billion 2011 defense budget proposed Monday by the Obama administration represents a 3.4 percent increase over the 2010 budget. But after adjusting for inflation, the increase is only 1.4 percent over current spending, which McKeon says would force reductions in future weapons programs to pay for current operations.

He is concerned about a forecast predicting that weapons programs, which make up 35 percent of the current defense budget, will be squeezed to 24 percent by 2020.

“That is a sizable and unacceptable decrease,” he says.

McKeon has not disguised his disagreements with the Obama administration over the handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and about the deliberative pace of decisions involving U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the speech he has prepared launches a wider attack, accusing Obama of having a “declinist vision” about America’s place in the world.

“The days of an American president describing America as a ‘shining city upon a hill’ seem to have passed,” McKeon says. “It appears we no longer stand atop a hill. Instead, this new vision sees the world as flat with our country sitting quietly between the United Kingdom and Uruguay.”

The “shining city” phrase was often used by President Reagan to describe how he saw the U.S. as a beacon of hope for emerging democracies.

“The role of America in the world will decline only if our elected leaders choose to retreat from America’s leadership role and global responsibilities,” McKeon says. “This path of decline is not inevitable.”