Congressional Leaders Ignore Military Pleas, Raising Specter Of Death And Defeat (From Forbes)

As the clock ticks down to a mid-December deadline for negotiators to find a way out of the federal government’s budget impasse, there isn’t much evidence congressional leaders are heeding the pleas of senior military officers. Those officers have been warning for many months that if the sequestration process put in place by the Budget Control Act of 2011 isn’t modified, military preparedness will plummet. Many combat units will not get adequate training for overseas contingencies, and investment in equipment will fall off to a point where U.S. warfighters can no longer count on having a technological edge in future conflicts. Because congressional leaders seem largely oblivious to the consequences of budget sequestration, they are making death and defeat in the wars of tomorrow more likely. I have written a commentary for Forbes here.