One Less Reason to Fear "Russia"

MOSCOW, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Russia is cutting military spending amid a deepening economic crisis but this will not affect purchases of new weapons and ammunition, the head of Russia's military said on Wednesday

"We have revised a number of items," Army General Nikolai Makarov, the armed forces' chief of general staff, told Reuters after closed-door hearings on army reform in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma.

"But I believe that on the issues we had wanted to resolve first, in particular, (new) weapons and ammunition, we will be fully covered. We will keep them at the planned level."

[...]

"Probably not a single ministry would agree to trim its spending," Makarov said. "But judging by the real economic situation of the country ... if there is just no cash, we simply cannot ask for it."

- Reuters North American News Service, Feb 11, 2009 11:09 EST

From a friend in Komsomol Nashi:
Well, we do need to save money. Plus, Medvedev is not the hardline militarist that Putin is (soon will be "was" all is pointing to it). He's a businessman. He sees when things are unprofitable and tries to fix that.

By contrast:

The Obama administration has given the Pentagon a $527 billion limit, excluding war costs, for its fiscal 2010 defense budget, an official with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said Monday.

If enacted, that would be an 8 percent increase from the $487.7 billion allocated for fiscal 2009, and it would match what the Bush administration estimated last year for the Pentagon in fiscal 2010.

- CQ Politics, Feb. 2, 2009 – 12:52 p.m.

And yet, the neoconservative noise machine is gearing up to accuse Obama of "cutting defense spending".

If this seems utterly inexplicable to you, then you don't understand the central organizing (or is that disorganizing) principle of post-9/11 America.