Remember Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush’s secretary of defense? Early in the Bush administration, he led a campaign to transform the U.S. military. He pushed for a switch to a lighter, more mobile, high-tech force. He wanted to move away from the old military, designed to conquer and keep territory. It sounded good at the time.

Then 9/11 happened, and we needed to conquer and keep territory.

Last week, President Obama proposed a dramatic shift to U.S. military forces. It looks a lot like what Rumsfeld tried more than a decade ago. Except, Obama has that decade to learn from. There is a certain allure to the idea that we should have a smaller, more agile military. But we cannot pretend that the future of warfare is such that we won’t need large, land-occupying forces anymore.

President Obama’s proposed cuts seem designed more to save money for spending on other things than for truly improving the armed forces. With this President, we don’t think it is overly cynical to conclude that the supposed justification for the cuts is a facade to cover for transferring money from the Pentagon to the President’s social welfare agenda.

It would be nice if we had a President who was as concerned about shrinking the rest of the federal government as he is about shrinking our national defense forces.