--- title: Pentagon Warns More Spending Reductions Mean More Risk description: Top weapons buyer warns of a return to the "hollow force" of the 1970s canonical: https://time.com/64807/pentagon-warns-more-spending-reductions-mean-more-risk/ author: Mark Thompson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-16T13:09:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:19:53.380Z article:section: Politics og:title: Pentagon Warns More Spending Reductions Mean More Risk og:description: Top weapons buyer warns of a return to the "hollow force" of the 1970s og:url: https://time.com/64807/pentagon-warns-more-spending-reductions-mean-more-risk/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte5eadef1953e1a86/69868ae1e8524b4f4e602684/screen-shot-2014-04-16-at-8-47-54-am.png?branch=production&width=709&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 709 og:image:height: 399 og:image:alt: Screen Shot 2014-04-16 at 8.47.54 AM og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Pentagon Warns More Spending Reductions Mean More Risk twitter:description: Top weapons buyer warns of a return to the "hollow force" of the 1970s twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte5eadef1953e1a86/69868ae1e8524b4f4e602684/screen-shot-2014-04-16-at-8-47-54-am.png?branch=production&width=709&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Pentagon Warns More Spending Reductions Mean More Risk > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Apr 16, 2014 1:09 PM UTC  Military spending is higher now than it was during the Cold War. "OCO funding" is the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military spending is higher now than it was during the Cold War. "OCO funding" is the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Apr 16, 2014 1:09 PM UTC For more than a year, the Pentagon declined to detail the impact of the battle-ax approach to cutting spending known as sequestration. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his allies bet that the prospect was so dire that lawmakers would reach a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction pact that would avert the calamity. They cried wolf, without details. But now, with Chuck Hagel running the Pentagon—and with sequestration the law of the land—the Defense Department is still crying wolf, but offering details of cut aircraft, docked warships, grounded drones and cashiered troops. It has just rolled out a [report](http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014%5FEstimated%5FImpacts%5Fof%5FSequestration-Level%5FFunding%5FApril.pdf?source=GovDelivery) detailing how bad letting the automatic spending cuts resume, after a two-year relaxation, will be. More than $1 trillion in “reductions to planned defense spending” between 2012 and 2021 “would significantly increase risks both in the short- and long-term,” says the report, released Monday night. “If sequestration-level cuts persist, our forces will assume substantial additional risks in certain missions and will continue to face significant readiness and modernization challenges.” Note the conflation of “reductions to planned defense spending” to “cuts.” Whatever you want to call the caps, they only [push](http://nation.time.com/2013/04/03/hagels-flawed-defense-spending-premise/) defense spending back down to 2006 levels, when the U.S. was waging two wars. The report says the required reductions translate into 15 fewer F-35s aircraft, five fewer KC-46 tankers, six few sub-hunting P-8 aircraft through 2021\. It trims the Navy’s current 289-ship fleet by seven vessels, including a carrier—and doesn’t buy eight new ships. It grounds the Predator and Global Hawk drone fleets. The number of military personnel also would be cut: the Army would dip to 420,000 from its current goal of about 440,000. Unfortunately for the Pentagon, there are scant signs the report is going to end sequestration. Defense hawks maintain the cuts will do massive damage to the national defense, while deficit hawks have said a soaring debt would be more dangerous than a weakened defense. So far, the deficit hawks are prevailing. “I don’t see any, right now looking forward, I don’t see any possibility of overturning it,” Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., the chairman of the armed services committee, said in February. “My read on it is there are people that have bought into it, that think that it’s doing a good job, that it’s really cutting our spending, so I personally just don’t see that that’s going to end until a lot of pain is felt by a lot of people…This year is going to be really bad and next year is going to be worse, and the next year will really be worse.” Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, suggested Tuesday that President Obama may simply ignore sequestration’s caps as he and the Pentagon assemble the 2016 defense budget, which will be unveiled early next year. “This is not definitive, and I don’t want to get ahead of the president, but I will tell you that it is extremely unlikely that we will ask for less money than the President thinks he needs to defend the country,” Kendall said. “I lived through a hollow force in the 1970s as an Army captain in Europe. 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