Speaking today to the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reported that cuts to military spending would mean a military that “will be able to go fewer places and be able to do fewer things.”

In the midst of three open-ended wars and endless attacks across the Middle East, one would think this might be a selling point, though Gates clearly didn’t intend it as such. Rather, he warned that the military faces “a diverse range of threats” and needs to retain funding at a level unrivaled in the history of humankind.

Both Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen addressed the subcommittee today and the message was, as ever, that the record current military budget represents underfunding and that even the “cuts” to the rate of growth going forward are major threats that could tear the US military, which receives almost ten times as much money annually as any other nation, to bits.