Stars and Stripes Op-Ed: Obama policies weaken military, embolden enemies

2/9/15

Please take a few minutes to read my latest Op-Ed that appeared in Stars and Stripes discussing the failures of President Obama's foreign policy:

"Obama policies weaken military, embolden enemies"

By Congressman Doug Lamborn

"I believe in a smarter kind of American leadership. We lead best when we combine military power with strong diplomacy; when we leverage our power with coalition building; when we don’t let our fears blind us to the opportunities that this new century presents. That’s exactly what we’re doing right now ?-? and around the globe, it is making a difference."

- President Barack Obama, Jan. 20

President Obama made that bold pronouncement in his State of the Union address. Unfortunately, the reality of the Obama administration is the exact opposite: Obama’s weak foreign policy is masking how much damage his cuts to our military are doing.

The weakness of the president’s foreign policy is painfully obvious. He won’t stand with our allies like France when they are hurting. He is sacrificing our relationship with Israel in a vain attempt to befriend Iran. He left our friends in Ukraine to their own devices as Russians invaded their country. Obama draws lines in the sand, and then immediately ignores them, making them meaningless to every nation in the world. Even his supposed foreign policy successes, like Libya, have devolved into disasters because of the politically motivated decision to lead from behind. Simply put, Obama is alienating our allies and aiding our enemies.

Even liberal foreign policy leaders are growing more critical of Obama’s foreign policy. Leslie Gelb, a Carter and Clinton administration official and former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote: "The Obama team lacks the basic instincts and judgment necessary to conduct U.S. national security policy in the next two years. It’s simply too dangerous to let Mr. Obama continue as is - with his current team and his way of making decisions."

The other dangerous facet to this failed foreign policy is how it is hiding the harm being done by the president’s draconian cuts to our military. For example, previous presidents of both parties likely would have sent an aircraft carrier into the Black Sea or the Baltic Sea to respond to Russian aggression. However, Obama’s budget cuts have made this extremely difficult - we simply don’t have enough aircraft carriers today. In fact, as I write this, we have one aircraft carrier deployed in the Middle East, and that’s it. We have no carriers in the Mediterranean Sea as Libya dissolves and the threat of al-Qaida grows across northern Africa. No carriers in the Indian Ocean. Even though there has supposedly been a "pivot" to the Pacific, reports now show that over a third of the time, there is no carrier in the Pacific Ocean. The bad actors in the western Pacific can sleep more easily, knowing that we are not there.

Unfortunately, what is true of aircraft carriers is also true of other vital military assets like bombers and advanced fighter aircraft, or missile defense and special operations units - because Obama has been decimating the defense budget, cutting the number of personnel in our military and cutting the aircraft, ships and equipment those men and women in uniform need to fight and win.

A smaller military can only be stretched for so long before it becomes hollow, leaving soldiers without training, airmen without aircraft, and servicemen and women struggling with overly long deployments.

A smaller military means that the enemies of America have more freedom to plot, plan and execute destructive actions against our interests and allies.

In his State of the Union speech, Obama claimed to be connecting "military power with strong diplomacy." The truth is that the president is weakening our military and failing at diplomacy.

Even worse, Obama’s incoherent foreign policy is hiding the true impact of defense budget cuts. The president fails to grasp that a weakened military will lead to weakened diplomacy, which will lead to increased risk to the United States. The purpose for a strong military is not to make war, but to prevent war by reinforcing diplomacy. As President Ronald Reagan famously said, we want peace through strength. The enemies of America will take diplomacy much more seriously if the United States and our allies have a powerful and credible military.

Congress must stand up in a bipartisan fashion against Obama’s foreign policy and defense failures. The president’s dangerous combination of failed foreign policy and devastating defense cuts must be opposed at every turn.

If we want true peace, we must be strong diplomatically and militarily. This has worked for America in the past and will work again in the future.

Link to this article: http://www.stripes.com/obama-policies-weaken-military-embolden-enemies-1.328484