Since announcing that he was a candidate for president, Governor Romney has continually criticized the Obama administration for what he claims are the president’s severe and unnecessary reductions in defense spending. According to Romney, Obama would make massive cuts in defense spending that could decimate the U.S. military by returning the armed forces to their pre-World War II levels. Romney’s doomsday scenarios have been echoed by conservative commentators like Robert Kagan, Dov Zakheim, Mackenzie Eaglen, Tom Donnelly, and Arthur Herman.
But close analysis reveals not only that these claims are overblown, but that if anyone is responsible for the defense budget failing to keep pace with the increases of the past decade, it is Romney’s own running mate, Paul Ryan.
The above excerpt was originally published in Foreign Policy.
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