On Thursday, the Pentagon will begin detailing its plans to cut $500 billion from the military's budget over the next decade. The reason, insists President Barack Obama, is that "since 9/11, our defense budget grew at an extraordinary pace." That's true in top-line numbers—but it's anything but true when examined strategically.

The U.S. Navy names its ships and submarines after presidents and states of the union, admirals and senators, even species of fish and mountain ranges. But every once in a while a ship, usually a destroyer, is named after ordinary persons or people for displaying extraordinary courage and sacrifice. One such ship was named this weekend, the USS Michael P Murphy.

Dick Armey is noticeably non-specific in discussing what might be cut from Pentagon budgets. This amounts to a confession of ignorance in national defense matters.

Likening defense spending to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid entitlements is appalling accounting--the unchecked growth in entitlements are already four times more costly than defense (including war costs) and rising--and an appalling admission that the commander in chief regards that job as just one of many.

Bob Gates is a good man who did a thankless job with grace and skill. But when our military needed a loud and firm advocate, he let Obama offer us, instead, a bleak future of shrinking American power.His successors need to correct course and take a bold stand to keep us strong as well as safe.

The Medium Extended Air Defense System should be terminated in favor of investment in the Patriot Missile Air Defense System.

The liberal reaction to Paul Ryan's budget plan makes it evident that liberals are more terrified than they've been since Jack Kemp (one of Ryan's mentors) advanced supply-side economics back in the late 1970s.

Law enforcement is not sufficient when faced with the reality of the war, as demonstrated by the attack on the USS Cole by al Qaeda operatives a decade ago this week.