Thank you for that.
The answer could be a very flat “yes” and we could move to the next question, but I think it deserves a bit more than that. With what we are talking about, I think retrenchment doesn't enhance security; it's quite to the contrary.
I think George put it very well. If you're doing just an across-the-board shaving of defence expenditure without having a sense of your priorities, you're debilitating your capacity even more than if you were doing a very strategic assessment of where you want to cut and where not. The British Chief of the Defence Staff said that he could have a smaller armed force that is much more effective than the one he has now.
I think that's part of the problem that you've identified so well. The focus on the finance side and not on the strategic requirement of the nation and of the west is partly responsible for the boldness of Mr. Putin.