Yet another absurd idea has emerged from the White House. President Donald Trump, with his usual glib disregard for consequences and the lessons of history, proclaimed his intent to hold a summit with the leaders of the Russian and Chinese regimes to negotiate a deal in which each country would slash its military budget in half.

To state the obvious, this is a recipe for disaster. The United States has wasted decades in its efforts to negotiate with Russia and China in an attempt to integrate these two totalitarian states into the liberal, human rights-centric world order. To put it simply, talking did not work.

Russia and China are intent on oppressing their own citizens and subjugating other nations. Not only do the leaders of Russia and China refuse to recognize the validity of a world order, but they reject the very notion of “human rights,” itself. In each case, while the United States negotiated in good faith, Russia or China plotted and schemed, vying for advantage and waiting for the most opportune time to harm the United States and its allies. Of course, slashing the military budget will leave the United States entirely unable to defend its own interests, let alone the security of its allies.

Setting aside these facts, however, it is important to note that much of the pain from this policy will be felt at home, rather than abroad.

Connecticut is currently the leading state in the nation for its concentration of defense manufacturing.

The defense industry accounts for 12.5-percent of Connecticut’s GDP and nearly 10-percent of Connecticut’s jobs. In the 2 1/2-year period between 2020 and mid-2023, 1,613 businesses in Connecticut were awarded Department of Defense contracts. The defense industry is the very foundation upon which Connecticut’s economy is built.

Connecticut accounts for 25 percent of all aircraft engine and parts manufacturing in the United States and the state accounts for 15 percent of all shipbuilding and repairs. Connecticut is the linchpin of our nation’s security.

Thus, it would not be hyperbole to state that, out of all of the 50 states in the U.S., Connecticut is the most vulnerable to radical shifts in federal policy.

Connecticut has been down this road before.

After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR, both Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton dramatically cut military spending. The first fell victim to a surgent optimism that had enthralled the intellectual class. The second was a New-Age populist catering to a general public rife with isolationist sentiments. Both presidents believed that retrenchment and investment at home was the hard-won right of the United States, having emerged victorious in a great and virtuous struggle. This is the so-called peace dividend that was once the dominant tenet of U.S. foreign policy, but now, which is so often decried in a world of harsh realities.

Submarines, a core component of Connecticut’s defense manufacturing industry, provide an easy example of the consequences of this policy.

President Ronald Reagan, during the eight years of his presidency, ordered 21 new nuclear submarines, as part of his military overhaul and the aspirational plan for a “600-ship Navy.”

President George H.W. Bush, during the four years of his presidency, ordered only four new nuclear submarines.

President Clinton, during the eight years of his presidency, ordered only five new nuclear submarines —an even lower rate, considering that Clinton was president for twice the length of time as Bush.

In particular, the story of the Seawolf-class submarine is a tragic display of the post-Cold War demilitarization.

The Seawolf-class submarine was the next generation of military technology, which, although designed during the early 1980s, still far outpaces the capability of every other submarine in the world, including some of the other submarines in the United States’ naval fleet.

Ronald Reagan had insisted that the U.S. Navy purchase 29 of these groundbreaking submarines, each of which was supposed to be produced at General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton. At the time, the Department of Defense estimated the value of the defense contract to be approximately $3 billion for the first five vessels and closer to $1 billion for each vessel after the first five, as production became more efficient and costs decreased. At a minimum, this would have amounted to $40 billion injected into Connecticut’s economy over the next two decades.

These 29 submarines are not included in the total purchased during Reagan’s presidency because, unfortunately, they were never ordered. Had they been included, Reagan’s total would have risen from 21 submarines ordered to 50 submarines ordered or promised. Connecticut’s defense industry was living large.

In 1993, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, held a dinner at the Pentagon that has become known as “the Last Supper.” At the dinner, Aspin instructed defense companies to consolidate to grapple with the consequences of steep cuts to defense appropriations. This amounted to a policy of ordering companies to go bankrupt.

For most defense companies, there was only one major customer, the U.S. government. This is especially the case for the high-dollar items, many of which are heavily restricted in terms of sale abroad. When the U.S. government stops buying, there is no way to keep the lights on. After the Last Supper, nearly 70-percent of the corporations making up the nation’s defense industrial base simply ceased to exist, through bankruptcy or acquisition, leaving behind nothing but the largest firms: Raytheon (RTX), Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc.

The consequences are obvious. From 1958-1989, the submarine industrial base had been able to consistently produce three to five vessels a year. Now, after the post-Cold War cuts, despite Rep. Joe Courtney’s efforts, the submarine industrial base still struggles to meet the aspiration of consistently producing two submarines per year, largely because of lackluster commitment by various presidential administrations to making the necessary investments.

In 1989, Connecticut entered a major post-war recession, along with the rest of the nation. The 1990-1991 recession has been attributed to a number of factors but, in Connecticut, the economic downturn was greatly exacerbated —if not, caused by— the atrophy of our defense industrial base. While for the rest of the nation the recession ended by the middle of 1991, for Connecticut, the recession would stretch for another year and the effects would last long after. During this recession, Connecticut lost 156,000 jobs. The submarine industrial base was slashed to just a quarter, laying off 75 percent of its previous workforce. It took the state more than a decade to recover these lost jobs, finally breaking even in December of 2000.

But, the gutting of our state’s defense industry and the post-Cold War recession had kicked off a vicious cycle.

In the early 2000s, just as Connecticut recovered the jobs lost in the post-war recession, the nation entered another recession —the “dot com” bubble burst. During this recession, Connecticut lost 60,000 jobs, which it would take another seven years to recover —until July of 2007.

Only four months after the State of Connecticut had recovered from the effects of the “dot com” recession, it was thrust into the Great Recession, which began in December of 2007. During the Great Recession, Connecticut lost 119,000 jobs —significantly fewer than it lost during the post-Cold War recession. Yet, 12 years after that recession, Connecticut still had not fully recovered the lost jobs, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

During COVID-19, Connecticut lost 290,000 jobs. Yet, less than three years later, the state had recovered all of its lost jobs. That is because President Joe Biden and Gov. Ned Lamont both led record recoveries at breakneck speed.

Never has this been more the case than with the defense manufacturing sector. Due to federal investment and principled foreign policy leadership under President Biden, strong advocacy from Reps. Courtney and Rosa DeLauro as well as other members of Connecticut’s Congressional delegation, and sound strategic planning from Lamont and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Connecticut’s defense industry is growing at an exponential rate.

Electric Boat, alone, had hired at least 13,000 new employees between 2020-2024, in what the company has called a “once-in-a-generation expansion.” Before President Trump’s reelection, Electric Boat had committed to hiring 20,000 new employees within a decade —more than doubling their workforce.

Yet, despite the state’s rapid recovery from COVID-19, the unfortunate truth is that, for nearly four decades, Connecticut has not had the opportunity to invest in its workforce. Connecticut has lurched from recession to recession, never with more than a few weeks or months between a full recovery from one national economic disaster and spiraling into the next.

In 1988, one year before the post-Cold War recession began, Connecticut had 1,688,000 jobs. In 2023, that number stood at 1.7 million. That is a 1.3% increase over 35 years, or a statistically insignificant average rate of 0.03% growth, annually. One is left to wonder how much better off Connecticut could have been had Electric Boat received the order for 29 Seawolf-class submarines that it was promised and had Connecticut experienced consistent federal investment in the state’s defense industrial base over the ensuing decades.

One more thing: the consequences that have been described here were a reaction to the combined decrease in the federal defense budget of both President Bush Sr. and President Clinton. At its harshest, when the federal defense budget was at its lowest point during these two presidencies, these cuts only amounted to a 15 percent reduction of the federal defense budget.

President Trump has proposed a 50-percent cut to the federal defense budget and the consequences are unfathomable. Certainly, Connecticut’s 158,000 manufacturing workers would find themselves out of work nearly instantaneously, releasing a shockwave that could drag hundreds of thousands of other workers in this state, indirectly supported by the defense industry, into unemployment —kicking off the worst recession in state history.

Just as Connecticut is at the cusp of growth and prosperity, Trump has put it all in jeopardy.

Logan M. Williams of Bristol is a foreign relations scholar with experience as a researcher and editor with organizations such as the Center for International Relations, the Center for Military Modernization, and the National Interest, among others.