You couldn’t cut defense enough to deal with the deficit.
Yes, that is correct.
Defense is actually a fairly small part of the budget, surprising as that may seem. Not saying there should not be some defense cuts, particularly in the corrupt Washington in which we live. But that is part of what is called “discretionary spending” (along with NSF and a lot of other things that aren’t “locked in” to the “mandatory expenditures” (otherwise called “entitlements”).
These are things like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security etc, which the cowards in Washington look on as the “third rail”.
But, when we become weak militarily, some others try to take advantage.
Look at China folks, and Obama’s tilt towards the Pacific (actually, as I recall, George Bush tried to propose a much stronger Pacific alliance, but it never went very far). I suspect the next major war in which we are involved will be in the western Pacific. Our allies there are already getting pretty nervous.
Why do you think China is trying to build (or buy) as many aircraft carriers as they can?
As someone with two children serving, I am always haunted by the famous picture of a Brit (as I recall, his name was Neville Chamberlain) getting off a plane from Munich and waving a piece of paper around: “Peace in our time”.
Hitler had given orders to his military that if the Brits or the French opposed his first (I think) incursion, his army should retreat within their own borders. But those two countries did nothing. We all know what happened then.