Defense Secretary Robert Gates understands that the country cannot keep issuing blank checks to the Pentagon and that the Pentagon needs to spend more rationally and efficiently.

He is committed to equipping American forces for the wars they are actually fighting. He has terminated some costly and unneeded weapons programs, held errant contractors accountable, and pressed the services to find savings to help pay for new spending.

Mr. Gates is right that there is no way to restrain Pentagon spending without addressing health care costs, which now account for almost 10 percent of the budget. He has proposed that working-age military retirees pay higher health insurance premiums  $520 a year, up from $460 now  the first increase in 16 years.

Some of that same managerial sense is evident in the Pentagon’s latest $553 billion request ($118 billion more is requested for Iraq and Afghanistan). But Mr. Gates did not go far enough. The $78 billion in spending cuts he announced last month were not really cuts, but merely reductions in projected hefty increases.