The Pentagon needs to take prompt action to bring its spending under control to stave off the kind of “drastic” defence cuts happening in Britain and Germany, according to Mike Mullen, the most senior US military official.
Referring to the 20 per cent or more cuts recently announced by America’s European allies, Admiral Mullen said the Pentagon had only a limited opportunity to act before similar changes would be imposed upon it given the sharply rising level of US national debt.
In a video interview with the Financial Times, he said: “If we do not figure out how to manage ourselves inside this growing challenge [of fiscal austerity] then I do worry that it won’t be too long before those kinds of cuts will be part of our future as well, and that would be very dangerous.”