Thread: Pentagon proposes cuts in budget, Army size

Pentagon proposes cuts in budget, Army size

Jan 26 02:14 PM US/Eastern

The Pentagon on Thursday proposed trimming the number of Army troops by 13 percent as the debt-ridden United States winds down a decade of war but vowed renewed investment to exert power in Asia and the Middle East. With pressure mounting to balance the US books, President Barack Obama's administration sought a nine percent cut in the 2013 budget compared with last year's request by retiring older ships and planes and pulling back two brigades from Europe.


Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, offering a budget request preview, said he was seeking to reduce the number of active US Army soldiers from 570,000 in 2010 to 490,000 by 2017. The Marines would be cut from 202,000 to 182,000.

Panetta proposed a $613 billion budget for the year starting in October -- a $525 billion base spending plan and $88.4 billion for combat operations, primarily in Afghanistan. The total request was $671 billion in the current year.

Panetta vowed to maintain US power in the Middle East and Asia -- where China's growing military has concerned the United States and its allies -- including by modernizing submarines and funding a next-generation bomber.

Panetta called for funding to station littoral combat ships in Singapore and patrol craft in Bahrain, part of the US strategy of forward-deploying its military to such small and strategically placed US allies.


Pentagon proposes cuts in budget, Army size

Pentagon cuts reshape military, trim costs

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey brief the media at the Pentagon Briefing Room, January 26, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

By David Alexander and Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON | Thu Jan 26, 2012 6:29pm EST

(Reuters) - The Pentagon unveiled a 2013 budget plan that would cut $487 billion in spending over the next decade by eliminating nearly 100,000 ground troops, mothballing ships and trimming air squadrons in a bid to create a smaller, agile force with a new strategic focus.
The funding request, which includes painful cuts that will be felt across the country, comes at a historic turning point for the military as it winds down 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and shifts its strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.
The budget plan, sharply criticized by some lawmakers, sets the stage for a new struggle between President Barack Obama's administration and Congress over how much the Pentagon should spend on national security as the country tries to curb its trillion-dollar budget deficits.
"Make no mistake, the savings that we are proposing will impact all 50 states and many districts, congressional districts across America," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told a news conference at the Pentagon on Thursday.
"This will be a test of whether reducing the deficit is about talk or action."
Panetta, previewing a budget to be made public February 13, said he would ask for a $525 billion base budget for the 2013 fiscal year, the first time since before the September 11, 2001, attacks that the Pentagon has asked for less than the previous year. That compares with $531 billion approved this year.
Panetta said he would seek $88.4 billion to support overseas combat operations, primarily in Afghanistan, down from $115 billion in 2012 largely due to the end of the war in Iraq and the withdrawal of U.S. forces there at the end of last year.
Congress ultimately controls the Pentagon's purse strings and regularly intervenes to change the size and detail of military spending as it sees fit. The Defense Department's budget accounts for about 20 percent of total federal spending.
Republican lawmakers who oversee military affairs on Capitol Hill sharply criticized the plan.
Senator John McCain said it "ignored the lessons of history" by imposing massive cuts on the military, and Representative Buck McKeon said it reflected "Obama's vision of an America that is weakened, not strengthened, by our men and women in uniform."
MORE CUTS TO COME?
The 2013 budget is Panetta's first as defense secretary and is the first to take into account the Budget Control Act passed by Congress in August that requires the Pentagon to cut $487 billion in projected spending over the next decade.
The budget plan does not take into account an additional $600 billion in defense cuts that could be required after Congress failed to pass a compromise agreement to cut government spending by $1.2 trillion. The Pentagon could face cuts of another $50 billion a year, starting in 2013, unless Congress changes the law.
Panetta said he hoped once lawmakers understood the sacrifice involved in reducing the defense budget by almost a half a trillion dollars, they would make sure to avoid another $500 billion in additional cuts that would "inflict severe damage to our national defense for generations."
The budget begins to flesh out a new military strategy announced by the Pentagon earlier this month that calls for a shift in focus from the ground wars of the past decade towards efforts to preserve stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.
"To ensure an agile and ready force, we made a conscious choice not to maintain more force structure than we could afford to properly train and equip," Panetta said.
The budget plan would provide new challenges for the Pentagon's top suppliers, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. The Arca index of defense stocks closed Thursday down 0.7 percent.
The plan retains but slows the purchase of weapons like Lockheed's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon's largest procurement program, as well as submarines, amphibious assault ships and other vessels. It would retain a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers.
The Pentagon would boost its emphasis on special operations forces like those who carried out the raid in Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden last year and rescued two aid workers this week from kidnappers in Somalia.
It would also increase its emphasis on cyber operations, expand its work on drone aircraft, go ahead with a long-range bomber and proceed with other weapons that would allow it to project power from a greater distance.
Those capabilities are needed as countries like Iran and China develop arms that could threaten U.S. aircraft carriers in international waters near their shores.
General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned against "parsing through each cut, each change, to look for a winner or loser," saying the plan should be judged for how it adapts the military to a changing security environment.
While the cuts announced on Thursday would affect all major defense contractors, consultant Loren Thompson said shipbuilders would be hit particularly hard because of the plan to cut 16 vessels from the total planned for the next five years.
The plans could affect work flow at Huntington Ingalls' shipyards in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Newport News, Virginia.
The size of the active-duty Army would be trimmed to 490,000 over five years from its wartime peak of 570,000 in 2010 and the size of the Marine Corps would fall to 182,000 from its high of about 202,000.
Military pay increases would begin to slow after two more years of growth, and fees would be increased on healthcare benefits for military retirees, those who served more than 20 years, both above and below the age of 65.
In addition, the Pentagon would:
- Delay development of a new ballistic missile submarine by two years.
- Eliminate six of the Air Force's tactical-air fighter squadrons and retire or divest 130 aircraft used for moving troops and equipment.
- Retire seven Navy cruisers and two smaller amphibious ships early, postpone the purchase of a big-deck amphibious ship by one year and postpone the planned purchase of a number of other vessels for several years.
- Eliminate two Army heavy brigades stationed in Europe and compensate by rotating U.S. based units into the region for training and exercises.
- Study the possibility of further reducing the size of U.S. nuclear arsenal.
- Begin a new round of talks on closing bases made unnecessary by the smaller force.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Pentagon cuts reshape military, trim costs | Reuters

US plans to cut Army, invest in future

• Published: 27/01/2012 at 02:32 AM
• Online news: World

The Pentagon on Thursday proposed trimming the Army's size by 13 percent as the debt-ridden United States winds down a decade of war but vowed new investments to exert power in Asia and the Middle East.

US Army soldiers arrive at their home base of Fort Hood, Texas in December 2011. The Pentagon on Thursday proposed trimming the Army's size by 13 percent as the debt-ridden United States winds down a decade of war but vowed new investments to exert power in Asia and the Middle East.


With pressure mounting to balance the US books, President Barack Obama's administration sought a nine percent cut in the 2013 budget compared with last year's request by retiring older ships and planes and pulling back two brigades from Europe.

But the administration called for investment on new projects including a futuristic floating base for special operations and drones and assigning elite Brigade Combat Teams with language training to each region of the world.

"We are at a strategic turning point after a decade of war and substantial growth in defense budgets," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said as he unveiled a preview of the Defense Department's 2013 budget requests.

Panetta vowed to maintain US power in the Middle East and Asia -- where China's growing military has concerned the United States and its allies -- including by modernizing submarines and funding a next-generation bomber.

Panetta called for funding to station littoral combat ships in Singapore and patrol craft in Bahrain, part of the US strategy of forward-deploying its military to such small and strategically placed US allies.

"The force we are building will retain a decisive technological edge, leverage the lessons of recent conflicts and stay ahead of the most lethal and disruptive threats of the future," Panetta told a news conference.

The budget is far from a done deal. Panetta is hoping to ward off calls for steeper cuts backed by some members of his Democratic Party, while Republicans seeking to defeat Obama in November elections have resisted any cuts to the military and instead prefer reductions on social benefits at home.

Panetta proposed a $613 billion budget for the year starting in October -- a $525 billion base spending plan and $88.4 billion for combat operations, primarily in Afghanistan. He said the base budget would rise to $567 billion by the 2017 fiscal year, by when the United States plans to withdraw most forces from Afghanistan.

He proposed reducing the number of active US Army soldiers from 570,000 in 2010 to 490,000 by 2017 and cutting the Marines' strength from 202,000 to 182,000 over the same period.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the proposals were "tough" and said he expected more cuts in the future as the Pentagon looks to meet a goal of saving $259 billion over five years.

"The primary risks lie not in what we can do, but in how much we can do and how fast we can do it," Dempsey said. "As I have said before, we will face greater risks if we do not change from our previous approach."

Among the most ambitious future projects, the budget would fund work on an "afloat forward staging base" -- a giant barge that can transport special operations or other forces at quick notice, reducing demands on aircraft carriers.

Even with cuts, the US military remains far larger than those of other countries. China, which has the world's second largest military budget, said it was devoting 601.1 billion yuan ($91.1 billion) in 2011, although many foreign experts believe that the actual figure is higher.

The United States has 285 ships and a goal of 313 in total, although the proposal calls for the early retirement of seven cruisers.

Panetta also called for getting rid of six of the Air Force's 60 tactical air squadrons -- meaning about 120 planes -- along with one training squadron.

As previously announced, the Pentagon plans to pull out two of four brigades from Europe -- for a total of more than 7,000 troops. The United States now has three brigades in Germany and one in Italy, although it has not decided which to withdraw.

In one proposal that is especially sensitive, Panetta said that Obama would ask Congress to set up a commission to consider closure of military bases "with a goal of identifying additional savings and implementing them as soon as possible."

Panetta promised to maintain military pay raises over the next two years that are in line with the private sector but warned of "more limited" increases afterward. He also called for increases in fees paid for health care, although he said the costs for retirees would remain below private sector plans.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/worl...vest-in-future

The Pentagon unveiled a 2013 budget plan that would cut $487 billion in spending over the next decade by eliminating nearly 100,000 ground troops, mothballing ships and trimming air squadrons in a bid to create a smaller, agile force with a new strategic focus.

A couple big things to note with these stories

1. Notice that 100,000 Troops are to be cut
a. 80,000 U.S. Army Soldiers
b. 20,000 U.S. Marines
c. Assorted Airforce and Navy Cuts

2. Right now there is 1 General for every Combat Brigade that does all the logistics, Planning, R&D ect. etc. 1 General for every 3,000 soldiers/Marines. During WWII there was 1 General for every 50,000 Combat Soldiers.

a. Not ONE General is being Cut (THATS WHERE THE FAT IS AT) (Not Where the Ground Pounder is at) We are TOP HEAVY at the Pentagon; not with our soldiers.
b. Panetta / Obama are intentionally stretching our armed forces to the breaking point as it is; when this happens (100,000 troops elimenated) all kinds of issues are going to rear their ugly head from PTSD; to Stress Over Load from back / back / back / back deployments
c. There are WAY too many Generals that are in the REAR; with the GEAR... working with the Military Industrial Complex, buying products from these companies and setting up their next job after military retirement instead of looking out for their soldiers best interest first
d. Lord Help Us