AS AMERICA FAILS ITS ALLIES – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:   American defense cutbacks are not being taken lightly by some of America's best allies.  If Field Marshal Obama won't maintain our alliances, countries will take matters into their own hands.  From the Washington Times: 

There’s a little good news from Down Under, and it comes when the West needs good news. Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia is moving up by three years the work on building a fleet of advanced frigates, at a cost of nearly $12 billion, expressed in American currency. It’s part of his plan to raise defense spending to 2 percent of Australia’s gross domestic product, up from 1.8 percent. This adds $2.6 billion a year to the current $23 billion military budget.

It’s reassuring that the United States has a solid ally, one with a clear understanding of the stakes, to oppose Chinese aggression in the region. The Australian initiative will produce a modernized fleet of 40 surface war ships and submarines to answer China’s thrust into the South China Sea. With threat to its southern shores a thousand miles away, China is scraping up and converting coral reefs and shoals to dry land in Southeast Asia, transforming them into military bases athwart one of the world’s most important sea lanes.

Australia is the canary in the Asian coal mine. Its economy is feeling the effects of China’s slowing economy and the collapse of commodity prices. If China descends further into crisis, a strong possibility, the effects will eventually be felt by all of China’s trading partners, and at a time when Australia’s allies — Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States — are cutting defense spending.

The growing integration of American, Australian and Japanese strategies in East Asia now will be accomplished by the American Navy, which once bore almost alone the responsibility for keeping the vast sea lanes of the region free for all. President Obama has shrunk the Navy to its smallest size since the end of World War I, and with it, responsibility.

COMMENT:  I'm glad that some other countries, although too few, are adding to their defense.  That, however, does not excuse the drastic, dangerous cuts that our leftist president is making here.  Our children's generation may pay the price, and it may be a painful one.

August 10, 2015