The U.S. military faces a readiness crisis - one confronting not just its people and end-strength cuts - but pushing equipment to the breaking point. Across all services, long-standing readiness problems are worsening and breakdowns are happening more frequently.

If the administration is serious about properly resourcing an American military emphasis in the Pacific while not taking our eye off the ball everywhere else, the president must send over a budget that proposes to reverse the decline of the Navy’s size, fleet, and readiness. Anything less should be called out for what it really is: a strategy that says one thing and a budget that does another.

When President Obama unveiled his new strategic guidance in January, highlighted by a pivot to Asia, many assumed (incorrectly) that the Navy and Air Force would reap the benefits. But if the president's own 2013 defense budget request did not make it clear to policymakers already, the release of the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan confirms this is a pivot in name only.

Conventional wisdom holds that the Navy and Air Force escaped the budget drill mostly intact while the Army endured the bulk of cuts. But the truth is that all of the services are shrinking and aging under the Obama budget.

As Washington considers slashing $500 billion from the defense budget over the next decade, the lessons of Libya should give pause to anyone whose plans will reduce the U.S. military's ability to control the air.

The Obama administration knows full well what the state of the military is. However, because it would rather shift the country’s spending priorities to domestic programs long favored by Democrats, it has willingly accepted, indeed gone beyond, what the 2011 Budget Control Act required in cuts to national security programs.

The Administration’s growing gap between the newest defense strategy and budget makes more sense when viewed in the context of the administration’s domestic priorities. Just as President Obama wants to raise taxes on some Americans in order to pay for others, the administration is weakening America’s military strength in order to pay for expansive domestic federal programs.

My secretary raced into my office to say that the Pentagon was on fire. I went to a window and saw a great cloud of smoke and fire rising just across the Potomac River from the iconic building's western side. We were under attack. We had no clue what was coming next.