This is worth an hour of your time:

If you have doubt, there is this Reuters headline, U.S. missile defense agency warns of “jeopardy” from budget cuts:

Further budget cuts would put the U.S. military’s ability to protect the United States in “serious jeopardy” at a time when Iran and North Korea are advancing their own missile programs, the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said on Thursday.

Vice Admiral James Syring told U.S. lawmakers that failure to lift budget caps in fiscal 2016 would force him to delay urgently needed steps aimed at improving the reliability of a system that top military leaders have already called “unsustainable” given growing threats and budget pressures.

It is not rational to think standing still means your potential enemies will also call a halt to their activities.

U.S. Naval Insitute News offers up Army-Navy Memo on need for Ballistic Missile Defense Strategy, referenced in the above:

UPDATE: Robert Work, Deputy Defense Secretary on budget issues as found in the Aviation Week opinion piece, “Budget Blunders Threaten U.S. Military Superiority”:

Sequestration is a blunder that allows our fiscal problems, not our security needs, to determine our strategy.