President Barack Obama’s new US defence posture – one that plans for “a smaller and leaner” military – is a significant moment in American policymaking. The US has built up the most capable armed forces in world, with the Pentagon budget today larger than that of the next 10 countries combined. Now, under severe budgetary pressure, the US is changing course. The US will cut at least $487bn from Pentagon spending over the next decade. It will scale back the army and marine corps. It will place a much stronger emphasis on the strategic challenge posed by China.
The Obama administration is right to make these cuts. After all, the economic crisis is arguably the biggest threat to western security today. Defence, like other budgets, must be pared back to boost fiscal credibility. The US must also learn from the Iraq and Afghan conflicts, moving away from fighting long counterinsurgency campaigns, and thinking more smartly about how to use air power, special forces and drones.
What this change in US policy must also do is prompt Europe to think harder about its own capabilities. For the past half century, Europe has assumed that the US will rush to its aid in any crisis. That assumption no longer holds. In Libya last year, the US warned that it expects European nations to take the lead when crises erupt in their own backyard. Yet Europe’s reaction to that warning – and to the US shift towards Asia – has thus far been disappointing.