Letter: Proposed defense cuts are too deep

A debate over defense spending is one thing, but the $1 trillion in defense cuts passed by last year's debt ceiling deal -- $500 billion of which would be slashed from the Pentagon -- is another ["Give defense a clear-eyed look," Editorial, Jan. 10]. If Congress actually goes through with these unprecedented cuts, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he would have to throw out President Barack Obama's defense strategy and "start over."

Under the debt ceiling deal's slash-and-burn approach, our Air Force would be drastically downsized. The blind cuts proposed would also suck the air out of our research and development programs, which have delivered such breakthrough technologies as GPS and radar. Without investing in the technologies of the future, we will surrender our military superiority and rob our economy of the massive commercial spin offs that have created whole industries.

Trimming our military to meet new realities makes sense. Shrinking it to these levels is madness.

Thomas C. Pinckney, Alexandria, Va.

Editor's note: The writer is retired from the U.S. Air Force as a brigadier general