The mirage of Obama's defence cuts If campaign narratives are to be believed, Barack Obama is busy dismantling America's national defences. Newt Gingrich says the Pentagon cuts fleshed out last week will render the US as vulnerable to attack as it was before Pearl Harbor. Mitt Romney says Mr Obama's aim is to manage America's decline. "We simply cannot continue to cut our defence budget if we are going to remain the hope of the Earth," says Mr Romney. The stage is set for an election that will present voters with sharply different visions of US national security - between a Democratic president who argues the Pentagon should not be exempt from the coming fiscal squeeze; and a Republican who believes that expanding the Pentagon will help restore America's greatness. The reality is more complex. US defence spending has almost doubled in real terms since the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Mr Obama's cuts would shave 8 per cent from the budget over the next decade - a bagatelle against what is taking place in Europe. But even this overstates the reduction, since Mr Obama's headline $487bn "cut" is from a 10-year projection that assumed yearly increases. Such is the state of Washington budget speak that even the most cautious fiscal recalibration can be made to sound draconian. Far better to deal in absolute measures. On that count, Mr Obama is only barely shifting the needle. By 2017, once his cuts are in full flow, US defence spending will be $567bn against what would have been $622bn. That is still almost six times what China spends today and more than the next 10 countries combined. Likewise, the US will still have 11 aircraft carriers, which will be at least eight more than anyone else. The US will maintain its unmatched nuclear "triad" on sea, air and land. And, in spite of having pared back its armed forces by 100,000, it will still have more men and women in uniform than it had on the eve of 9/11. If this is weakness what does strength look like? There is a similar gap on foreign policy between rhetoric and reality. Both the remaining Republican hopefuls bizarrely accuse Mr Obama of leaving Israel to the mercy of Iran - Mr Romney has pledged that his first presidential trip will be to Jerusalem. He also promises he will "never apologise for America." In addition to plans to extend America's suburbs to the moon, Mr Gingrich vows that he will "never bow to a Saudi king" in reference to Mr Obama's awkward nod to the late King Abdullah in 2009. In practise, depicting Mr Obama as appeaser-in-chief is unlikely to work. These days Americans are less preoccupied by threats from the rest of the world. According to Pew Research, only 9 per cent rank foreign policy as a top priority, against 81 per cent for domestic issues - the largest gap in 15 years. But Americans do convey alarm about economic decline. At least a decade too soon, a plurality thinks China has overtaken the US to be the largest economy in the world. More to the point, Mr Obama has notched up enough military success to silence talk that he is the second coming of Jimmy Carter. As he wandered to the podium last week to deliver his State of the Union address, Mr Obama was overheard saying "Good job tonight" to Leon Panetta, the defence secretary. It transpired he was referring to the Navy Seal raid on Somalia that rescued two American hostages and killed all nine captors. Mr Obama then salted his address with reminders that he ordered Osama bin Laden's killing nine months ago. There was little need to highlight the Afghanistan troop surge, the drone attacks on al-Qaeda targets around the world, or even to hint at covert operations by the US and its allies in Iran. Most Americans have got the point: this commander-in-chief is comfortable using force. Yet it was unclear what Mr Obama meant when he concluded by proclaiming that "America is back." More than any country, America knows that national strength is built on economic foundations. US economic superiority was what won the cold war, as George Kennan urged in his Long Telegram of 1947. So far, at least, Mr Obama has silenced the critics on his strategy of "leading from behind" - Muammer Gaddafi's killing offered gruesome evidence that it can bring results. But he is still reluctant to make an explicit trade-off between confronting a bloated US military and rejuvenating US economic competitiveness. In an era of fiscal choices, bolder decisions are needed. Why are there still 30,000 troops in Germany? Why does the US need almost 2,000 nuclear warheads? Under what scenarios does it imagine fighting major land wars? Such debates rumble quietly. On these too Mr Obama is leading mostly from behind. Instead of endlessly praising the soldiers as they withdraw from Iraq and soon Afghanistan, should we not be asking why the US has expended so much blood, time and money to achieve so little? Alas, it remains taboo in America to criticise the army chiefs. Their standing is as high as ever. Were Mr Romney to take the White House, they would be excused from the austerity he promises for civilian spending. Should Mr Obama be re-elected, he would still have a tough time convincing them and Congress to agree on a more radical overhaul of the Pentagon. Inoculated though he is against charges of weakness abroad, Mr Obama is not strong enough at home to initiate the debate America so badly needs.