I think that military cuts are unavoidable. Regardless of your politics, this is something that we have to deal with in the here and now. We waste untold billions every year propping up useless bases in certain congressional districts, meanwhile we're cutting flight hours and hollowing out the force because there's not enough funds to go around.

This pork barrel defense spending is corruption, plain and simple. Politicians are using the presence of military installations to buy votes (rather than focusing on a unified, efficient national strategy), no different than how a politician doles out welfare spending to buy votes. This is the kind of thing you expected from the Soviet Union, not the U.S. Sad state of affairs.