People always talk about Bob Kagan as the smart Kagan child, but even if his brother wasn’t Fred Kagan, this column would still be pretty egregious. It begins with the false premise that President Obama is going to cut defense spending and then proceeds to argue that defense spending is stimulative.

On the stimulus question, he’s not wrong. Defense spending indeed stimulates the economy. It’s just curious how all of these old and wheezing defense platforms of dubious/debatable utility to national security are suddenly presented as important parts of economic recovery — and presented outside the context about what other, perhaps-less-expensive measures might be more stimulative. To be fair, Kagan doesn’t advocate for any particular defense program, but that just makes the argument a bit generic and tacked-on.

But all of this proceeds from the incorrect premise that Obama is going to cut defense spending. In fact, as Josh Rogin reported yesterday, Obama’s Office of Management and Budget is capping the ceiling on non-war related spending at eight percent above the fiscal 2009 budget. It’s possible that Obama will ask the Pentagon to rein in its projections for future defense spending. But those are projections and not actual spending. A simple Google search would have spared us Kagan’s column — presuming, that is, it was writtenin good faith.

 Also see Glenn Greenwald, who hit this before I did, but I didn’t see his post until after I had written mine.

Crossposted to The Streak.