The problem of sequestration lies not in the total amount of cuts each service must make, though those levels are severe. Anyone with even a casual exposure to the post-Vietnam drawdown could have guessed that significant cuts were coming. A system of funding in which authority to begin reductions only occurs at midyear (and in which Congressional rules protect favored programs) ensures that the heaviest impact falls on readiness, especially training. If practiced over two years, this approach will result in a C3 or C4 force. If it is exercised for a longer period, we will return to the 1970s, a very ugly memory to those of us who lived and served through that era—and a hazard to our nation at time of intense strategic instability and uncertainty worldwide.

General Norton A. Schwartz (USAF, Ret.) is president and CEO of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington. General Montgomery C. Meigs, (USA, Ret.) is the organization’s immediate past president.