“Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen quite clearly that the Republicans in the House are not uniformly wedded to high levels of defense spending,” said Gordon Adams, who ran defense and national security budgeting for the Clinton White House. “But Republicans are very much uniformly wedded to no tax increases. … I think they’ll ultimately come down on the side of no tax cuts.”

Defense sources say the fiscal-minded class of House freshmen has brought an openness to defense cuts that is pulling the GOP in a new direction…

“Defense is one of the pillars of the Republican platform,” said one hawkish GOP House aide. “I’d hate to face an election in 2012 having horse-traded away national security to pay for the president’s ballooning domestic spending.”