In a Wednesday speech outlining his plan to rein in ballooning deficits, Mr. Obama proposed cutting $400 billion in projected security spending by 2023/.../ Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said reaching the president's budget targets would require that the Pentagon "go beyond efficiencies" and seek more substantial cuts to both troop strength and weapons programs."What they've cut so far was essentially low-hanging fruit—programs that were troubled or weapons systems that we simply didn't need any more," he said. The Obama plan would force Washington, he added, to make "hard choices" about which spending to jettison."If it's not done right … and everyone has to take a haircut, the risk is you end up with a military that is just smaller and less capable in all areas, rather than fully capable in the most important areas," he said.
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