March Madness

College basketball and national defense are oddly similar.

Lets be honest, the Month of March is good for only one thing- March Madness. From a field of 327 division-1 basketball teams, only 64 are chosen to attend the NCAA tournament.

The month is filled with anticipation as sports pundits predict the tournament based on an inexact science known as bracketology. After selection Sunday (just two days ago) subsequent weeks are filled with classic matchups, glorious victory, and humiliating defeat.

Similarly, the Obama administration's "selection sunday" is close at hand. The coming days, weeks, and months will tell us how this administration is planning the future of a variety of US weapons systems including the F22, the airborne laser program, and a variety of missile defense and nuclear initiatives.

Obama has tipped his hand here in a campaign video in which he promises to cut defense spending and decrease the size and reliability of our nuclear deterrent.

Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates is in on the action as well. The Boston Globe reports,

Two defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said Gates will announce up to a half-dozen major weapons cancellations later this month. Candidates include a new Navy destroyer, the Air Force's F-22 fighter jet, and Army ground-combat vehicles, the officials said.

The Obama administration has already passed a bare-bone defense budget which will eventually be revised to include what is left of our new weapons programs.

Admittedly, the United States is screeching through a recession, which has devastated the ability for the government to generate revenue. Government agencies should be expected to cut back when every other American is doing the same. This goes for every agency, from the Department of Education to the Department of Defense.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Instead, we have passed a grossly irresponsible 1 TRILLION DOLLAR stimulus package which inflates government in almost every arena, while defense spending is projected to decline.

Its almost as if the leadership in this country thinks that national defense is a game.

Basketball is a game. If you lose, you go home, but there is always next season.

If we lose a strategic capability, there is no next season.