Obama Channels Brits' retreat from Nazi Germany

Obama Channels Brits' retreat from Nazi Germany Hugh Hewitt Columnists Washington Examiner

By:Hugh Hewitt

"We shall have to give up certain of our toys -- one is 'Britannia rules the waves,'" then-Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin told the London Daily Herald in 1935, in a causal casting off of the idea of England's unchallengeable force at sea.

Thus was that era's "strategic reassessment" -- the Anglo-German Naval Agreement -- sold to the public. Baldwin had agreed to a ratio of 35 German warships for every 100 of Great Britain's, except with regards to submarines, where Germany could have four for every five that the Royal Navy built.

But Britain was a sea power and was crippling its greatest strategic advantage.

In his magnificent portrait of Winston Churchill in the 1930s, "Alone," William Manchester recounted the instant and ringing denunciation of the pact by David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, deeply experienced in war, to no avail. Churchill's critics savaged him as a scaremonger.

"It is better to be alarmed and scared now than to be killed hereafter," he replied. Lloyd George denounced the deal as the "acme of gullibility" when it came to the intentions of the Nazis.

"What a windfall this has been for Japan," added Churchill, noting that all of Britain's adversaries would watch and respond to all of Britain's appeasements.

President Obama's announcement last week of a strategic reassessment that would be accompanied by massive cuts in troop levels and defense spending drew instant criticism as well, from House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and one of his subcommittee Chairman Rob Wittman, R-Va., who both appeared on my radio show to blast the cuts and the radical revision to American war-fighting doctrine.

That the president will go to the mat to defend NPR and Solyndra as he slashes the Marines Corps will communicate to the public his underlying priorities, but it may not adequately convey the looming danger.

"Drones and special forces" is the short version of the reply from the president's defenders, but this is just absurd. To deploy those craft and especially those men requires a very long, very expensive chain of personnel and equipment.

When the blockbuster film "Act of Valor" releases in a month -- the film features seven active duty SEALs in the starring roles and was made with the full cooperation of the Navy and based on real operations -- keep an eye on all the elements of the military that allows the tip of the spear to strike the target.

We have a radical as a president -- radical in his domestic policies, his vision for the country vis-a-vis the rest of the world, in his view of his own authority (as we saw in the patently illegitimate recess appointments), and now radical in his rush to cripple the military, the command of which he may sense he will be relinquishing in a year's time.

It is for the uniformed military to follow the orders of their civilian bosses, but it is for Congress to say no to a lame-duck president who lost his mandate in November 2010 but who continues to insist on spending goals and priorities profoundly out-of-step with the large majority of Americans.

Obama is our Baldwin, and they both had their fawning supporters in the press. But the example of the terrible war and suffering brought on by the former's appeasement policies and penny-wise, pound-foolish defense budgets may help stiffen the resolve of our Congress to simply say no to the latter until the American people have decided whether they want to endorse the Obama doctrine of decline and deficits.

Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2012/01/obama-channels-brits-retreat-nazi-germany/2074746#ixzz1izy6RP7U