“[I]n his second term, Obama is going to show who he really is”

“Because Obama [has] this ideological vision of America as a superpower too big for its britches,” Krauthammer replied. “He wants to cut it down to size.”

Krauthammer rejected the idea that advanced military technology can entirely make up for Obama’s proposed defense cuts.

“That’s the kind of argument you always hear, and it’s always false,” Krauthammer said. “Let’s take one example. The drone campaign. That’s a tremendous advance in technology. But that hasn’t done a thing to prevent the rise of al-Qaida in North Africa. … China is the rising power in the East. China is developing a huge and sophisticated navy which it never had. And it is quite clear what the objective is: to expel the United States from its coastal waters in the Western Pacific, where we have been the prevailing power for the last 50 years, since the fall of Japan. Now, we are going to have to build — you cannot counter the Chinese navy and aircraft carriers with drones. So the idea that somehow you can down size and preserve your power in the world is simply a false one.”