At a time when Rep. John Murtha and his Democrat cohorts are advancing a “slow bleed” strategy for our soldiers in Iraq, conservatives have a plan of their own they can wrap their arms around. Former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent has an outstanding cover story in the latest issue of National Review about the need for a bigger U.S. military.

Talent believes the U.S. is at a crucial moment in the War on Terror — a time when we could scale back our commitment to the military (reminiscent of Jimmy Carter’s approach after Vietnam) or invest tens of billions of dollars to modernize its forces and keep America safe. Talent also argues that the Army, Navy and Marine Corps are too small at current levels.

The idea has been dubbed “4% for Freedom” by my colleagues at The Heritage Foundation. It’s the idea that defense spending should never fall below 4% of GDP, about the level it’s at today. By comparison, defense spending was roughly 7.5% of GDP during the Cold War.

Here’s more from Talent:

President Bush’s recent defense-budget submission is the best news for American security in 15 years. The Democratic leaders should fully fund it, and the administration deserves credit for proposing it. But it would not have been necessary if the Clinton administration had not cut defense spending in the 1990s, or if the first George W. Bush administration had more robustly funded the needs that were clearly apparent even in 2001. By adopting the “4% for Freedom Solution,” our leaders can show that for once they have learned the lessons of the past. There never will be a war that ends all wars; history has shown that, even in years where threats do not seem immediate, the dangers remain — and only the reality and perception of American power can deter them from breaking out.

UPDATE — 2:19 p.m.: No sooner had I finished writing this and news broke of the military’s equipment shortfalls.