<P>President Barack Obama survived a tenuous economy and a toxic political environment to win re-election in 2012, but the bitter partisan divide in Washington survived as well. So did the country's huge fiscal deficit. in this, the latest in a long line of Brookings Institution analyses of the defense budget, Michael O'Hanlon considers how best to balance national security and fiscal responsibility during a period of prolonged economic stress and political acrimony ?even as the world remains unsettled, from Afghanistan to Iran to Syria to the western Pacific region.</P><P>O'Hanlon explains why the large defense cuts that would result from prolonged sequestration or from deficit-reduction projects such as the Bowles-Simpson plan are too deep. But the bulk of his book represents an effort to look for greater savings than the Obama administration's 2012 proposals would allow.</P><P>Praise for the work of Michael O'Hanlon</P><P> <I>The Opportunity:</I> "A practical and hard-headed analysis of how another Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty might be achieved" ? <I>Financial Times</I> <I>The Science of War:</I> "Timely, thoughtful, and full of insight. A signal contribution to the field." ?General David S. Petraeus, U.S. Army</P><P> <I>A Skeptic's Case for Nuclear Disarmament: </I>"O'Hanlon expertly unravels the myriad threads of the often abstruse disputes about nuclear weapons and disarmament." ? <I>New York Times Book Review</I></P>