Ghost of a flea

With only 286 ships, the Navy has less than half the ships it had under President Ronald Reagan, and far fewer than the admirals say is the minimum needed to fulfill the fleet's global missions as the country's "first responder."

As to the cost argument, the United States is not poorer than it was 25 years ago. The 2011 naval shipbuilding budget is only $13 billion out of a total Federal budget of $2.6 trillion. Or put in another perspective, the Navy won't spend as much money building new fleet units over the next decade as was given in a lump sum to bail out the AIG insurance company. The Federal government is spending enormous amounts of money, just not on the Navy.

As Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, recently noted, “Barack Obama came to office promising to ‘fundamentally transform’ America.” Gaffney and others are increasingly concerned that Obama is “changing the United States from ‘the world’s sole superpower’ to a nation that may require the permission, or at least the help, of others to project power and defend its interests around the globe.”

Nothing invites mischief and outright attack more than weakness. Theodore Roosevelt said, “The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.”