WASHINGTON — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal tore into President Barack Obama on national defense in a speech Monday.
“Consider the consequences of just the last year,” the governor said, listing some recent crises, including the rise of ISIS, Russia’s expanding role in Ukraine, Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, unrest in Libya and North Korea’s threats.
“For anyone with a degree of introspection,” Jindal said, “this would be a time to consider whether the ramifications of your ideas were leading the world to experience more chaos and less clarity.”
The speech came at an American Enterprise Institute event in which Gov. Jindal presented his “plan to rebuild America’s military strength and reaffirm the United States as a force for freedom and stability around the world.”
Jindal touched on a number of issues, including the Affordable Care Act and budget sequestration, but the thrust of his speech at the conservative-leaning think tank was the assertion that the Obama administration has been ineffective at taking tough stances with enemies and in encouraging allies.
“What we see time and time again from this president is a projection of weakness,” Jindal said. “President Obama has misused the tools of ‘soft power.’”
Also among the governor’s complaints were Obama’s cuts to the defense budget.
“The president essentially junked his own defense budget in a speech and pulled a new number for defense spending out of thin air.”
The governor was referring to the 2011 Budget Control Act, which made deeper cuts to defense than those proposed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The law’s across-the-board cuts, which put an end to that year’s debt ceiling crisis, passed the Senate by unanimous consent and received support from a majority of House Republicans.
“Under these cuts, America will not have a global Navy anymore,” Jindal said.
“We will be almost 100 ships behind the Chinese Navy. The Army and Air Force will shrink dramatically.”
While the United States may be falling behind China in terms of the raw number of vessels, that does not account for the type of ship being counted. For example, the United States Navy has ten aircraft carriers. The Chinese Navy has one. The rest of the world together has nine.
Jindal has been called a rising star in the Republican Party, and he is considered a possible 2016 presidential candidate. But the 43-year old governor has not set announced his intentions.
“My timetable will likely be sometime after the holidays, but it is something I’m thinking and praying about.”