AEI’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies will host Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter for a timely discussion of U.S. defense budgets, of the changing strategic landscape in the U.S. and the force that this landscape demands.

The world is becoming increasingly scary at the very time that the military will be facing 20% reductions. With each passing day, the world closes in; with each passing day, our ability to manage that world degrades.

America is nearing a decisive moment.  Unless Congress acts to change current law, automatic sequestration cuts will slash future spending on national defense across-the-board by over $500 billion beginning early next year.

The joint statement released by the Defending Defense Coalition details the devastating impact that the upcoming automatic sequestration would have on the U.S. military and the consequent need for the House of Representatives to pass the reconciliation bill in order to defend national security strategy.

But few inside Washington think Americans are concerned about sequestration. House Armed Services Committee Readiness Subcommittee Chairman Randy Forbes (R-Va.) wants to change that. He’s embarking on the “Defending Our Defenders” national tour to conduct installation oversight and hold local town-hall meetings to better understand the real impact of sequestration.

Mackenzie Eaglen and Michael O'Hanlon explain the disastrous repercussions of defense sequestration. In particular, they highlight the fact that, unless Congress acts quickly, defense sequestration starts today -- not in 2013.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said if sequestration stands, "we wouldn't be the global power that we know ourselves to be today." He's right.

The primary drivers of our growing debt burden are the “Big 3” entitlements of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Yet as part of the debt ceiling deal that created sequestration when the Super Committee failed, politicians effectively fenced off nearly two-thirds of the federal budget and the main source of our over-spending.