http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed684ca2-4830-11e1-b1b4-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1kyKKRVez

January 29, 2012 8:27 pm

The mirage of Obama’s defence cuts

By Edward Luce

If campaign narratives are to be believed, Barack Obama is busy dismantling America’s national defences. Newt Gingrich says the Pentagon cuts fleshed out last week will render the US as vulnerable to attack as it was before Pearl Harbor. Mitt Romney says Mr Obama’s aim is to manage America’s decline. “We simply cannot continue to cut our defence budget if we are going to remain the hope of the Earth,” says Mr Romney.

The stage is set for an election that will present voters with sharply different visions of US national security – between a Democratic president who argues the Pentagon should not be exempt from the coming fiscal squeeze; and a Republican who believes that expanding the Pentagon will help restore America’s greatness.

Such is the state of Washington budget speak that even the most cautious fiscal recalibration can be made to sound draconian. Far better to deal in absolute measures. On that count, Mr Obama is only barely shifting the needle. By 2017, once his cuts are in full flow, US defence spending will be $567bn against what would have been $622bn. That is still almost six times what China spends today and more than the next 10 countries combined.The reality is more complex. US defence spendinghas almost doubled in real terms since the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Mr Obama’s cuts would shave 8 per cent from the budget over the next decade – a bagatelle against what is taking place in Europe. But even this overstates the reduction, since Mr Obama’s headline $487bn “cut” is from a 10-year projection that assumed yearly increases.

Likewise, the US will still have 11 aircraft carriers, which will be at least eight more than anyone else. The US will maintain its unmatched nuclear “triad” on sea, air and land. And, in spite of having pared back its armed forces by 100,000, it will still have more men and women in uniform than it had on the eve of 9/11. If this is weakness what does strength look like?

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed684ca2-4830-11e1-b1b4-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1kyKKRVez

Just Don’t Call Her Che

LATE last month the British newspaper The Guardian asked readers to vote for its person of the year. The candidates included household names like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Egyptian techno-revolutionary Wael Ghonim and the Burmese pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. All placed far behind a striking, nose-ringed student from Chile named Camila Vallejo.


Though far from a familiar face in the United States, the 23-year-old Ms. Vallejo has gained rock-star status among the global activist class. Since June she has led regular street marches of up to 200,000 people through Santiago’s broad avenues — the largest demonstrations since the waning days of the Pinochet regime in the late 1980s. Under her leadership, the mobilization, known as the Chilean Winter, has gained nationwide support; one of its slogans, “We are the 90 percent,” referred to its approval rating in late September.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/student-protests-rile-chile.html