Thread: In new strategy, Panetta plans even smaller army

In new strategy, Panetta plans even smaller army

Defense secretary will unveil plan to cut billions from defense budget

The aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis transits the Straits of Hormuz in this Navy handout photo dated Nov. 12. Defense Secretary Panetta is set to unveil a new budget strategy that targets Army cuts, but would not touch the U.S. carrier fleet

By THOM SHANKER and ELISABETH BUMILLER

updated 1 hour 7 minutes ago 2012-01-05T05:40:59

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has concluded that the Army has to shrink even below current targets, dropping to 490,000 soldiers over the next decade, but that the United States should not cut any of its 11 aircraft carriers, according to Pentagon officials and military analysts briefed on the secretary’s budget proposals.

Mr. Panetta is to disclose the strategy guiding hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon budget cuts during an unusual Defense Department news conference on Thursday, when President Obama is to appear in the Pentagon briefing room and make remarks ahead of those by Mr. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Obama has never before briefed reporters at the Pentagon, and administration officials said they did not know of any president who had.

Mr. Obama’s presence is an election-year effort to place the president squarely behind a new military strategy that will downsize the Pentagon, pivot from expensive ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and refocus on threats from China while not ignoring the threat of Iran.

Military experts familiar with Mr. Panetta’s thinking said that Mr. Obama had opposed reducing the American carrier fleet to 10 from 11 because of what he sees as the need to have enough force in the Pacific Ocean to act as a counterweight to China.

New fiscal reality

White House and Pentagon officials sought to portray Mr. Obama, who has been criticized by the Republican presidential candidates as weak on national security, as deeply involved in planning for the new strategy. “He has led this review process personally,” said the National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor. The White House followed up Mr. Vietor’s remarks with a list of a half-dozen strategy meetings that Mr. Obama had led with top Pentagon and military officials since September.

The new military strategy is driven by at least $450 billion in Pentagon budget cuts over the next decade. Another $500 billion in cuts could be ordered if Congress follows through on plans for deeper reductions.

As part of the new reality, Mr. Panetta is expected to propose cuts in coming weeks to next-generation weapons, including delays in purchases of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet, one of the most expensive weapons programs in history. Delaying the F-35 would leave its factories open, giving the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, a chance to work out continuing problems in developing the plane while freeing up money that otherwise would be devoted to buying the warplane in the next year or two.

Senior aides to both Mr. Panetta and General Dempsey said few specific details on Pentagon budget cuts would be released at the Pentagon on Thursday. But a number of Pentagon officials, military officers and defense-budget specialists briefed on Mr. Panetta’s plans discussed specific programs on the chopping block on the condition of anonymity ahead of announcements expected this month.

The Army is already is slated to drop to a force of 520,000 from 570,000, but Mr. Panetta views even that reduction as too expensive and unnecessary and has endorsed an Army of 490,000 troops as sufficient, officials said.

The defense secretary has made clear that the reduction should be carried out carefully, and over several years, so that combat veterans are not flooding into a tough employment market and military families do not feel that the government is breaking trust after a decade of sacrifice, officials said.

No plans for new ground wars?

A smaller Army would be a clear sign that the Pentagon does not anticipate conducting another expensive, troop-intensive counterinsurgency campaign, like those waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor would the military be able to carry out two sustained ground wars at one time, as was required under past national military strategies.

Instead, the military would be required to fight and win one war, spoil the military aspirations of another adversary in a different region of the world, and all the while be able to conduct humanitarian relief operations and other contingencies, like continuing counterterrorism missions and enforcing a no-fly zone.

The size of the Marine Corps is also expected to be reduced, although it would be expected to benefit from a renewed focus on the Asia-Pacific region, with Marines deployed aboard ships as well as at bases west of Hawaii.

Mr. Panetta is also examining personnel costs, with cuts to future retirement benefits and fees for health care offered to Defense Department retirees on the table.

Some areas of Pentagon spending will be protected. The defense secretary will not advocate cuts in financing for defense and offense in cyberspace, for Special Operations forces or for the broad area of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

In general, the new “Defense Strategic Review” to be outlined Thursday will try to define American national security interests in what officials said would be more realistic, narrow terms — to allow the acquisition of required military capabilities with a reduced budget.

Copyright © 2012 The New York Times
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US Army Facing Big Challenges in 2012



December 30, 2011
Military.com|by Michael Hoffman

Not one, but two changes of command took place at the Army's highest level this past year. Gen. Martin Dempsey measured his time as the Army chief of staff in weeks rather than years before President Obama nominated him to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The transition in the service's top office proved to be a prominent example of the larger transition the Army experienced in 2011. Rather than surges, the Army is preparing for a major drawdown. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno talks about potential future operations in the Pacific almost as much as actual ongoing ones in the Middle East.

Plenty of challenges lie ahead for the Army in 2012. They include the shrinking defense budget; hopes for a reinvigorated acquisition system; settling on a camouflage pattern; and battling the traumatic brain injuries that continue to ravage the force.

Four months into his term as the Army's top officer, Odierno has transitioned past the short-lived Dempsey era and is establishing his own style of command. Much as Odierno did in Iraq when he took over for Gen. David Petraeus, the 6-foot-6 commander must replace a media darling and lead the force through the meat-and-potatoes grunt work of an operation in flux.

Army drawdown

On top of Odierno's list of priorities is the Army's force structure and figuring out what force mix is right for the post-Iraq, budget apocalypse era of the U.S. Army.

Fears about the budget collapse can sometimes seem like hyperventilation, but the cuts to Odierno's force will probably be real. Sources inside the Pentagon have said the Army plans on cutting 10 of its 45 active-duty brigade combat teams in the next five years. It's part of the larger 50,000 reduction of Soldiers over the same time period.

Momentum for the BCT cuts started under Dempsey, who studied reshaping the force mix during his time in charge of Training and Doctrine Command. Today these questions are part of a Total Army Analysis that was set to be completed in December. A general officer heading the analysis said to expect major announcements on the Army's future force mix as early as January or February.

Certain Army leaders welcome the cuts to BCTs, arguing growth in the remaining BCTs will be a more efficient model at a time when the Army will not need as many to fulfill as many deployments. Growing BCTs into a larger apparatus while shrinking the total number also will lower the number of resulting staffs and bureaucracies, one general said.

Reserve and Guard leaders will look on warily. Service leadership has promised to maintain its commitment to the "total force" concept, but guardsmen and reservists know the reserve component has served as a target for cuts in previous budget drawdowns.

There is some potential that officials could cut five Reserve Brigade Combat Teams, but cutting Reserve force structure versus active-duty force structure doesn't save the Army as much money, especially as deployments come down and more Reservists come off Title 10 orders.

Camouflage

Whatever Army officials decide on the future force mix, the service's remaining Soldiers could find themselves in yet another camouflage pattern. In mid-January, the Army is expected to announce the companies that could make the Army's next family of camouflage uniforms.

Four civilian industry camouflage patterns and one government pattern are expected to be named as the finalists of the fourth and final phase of the Army's Camouflage Improvement Program.

The camouflage effort was designed to find camouflage patterns best suited for environments such as woodland and jungle; desert; and "mixed terrain." The new patterns will be field tested, but it's unclear whether they will replace the Army's Universal Camouflage Pattern.

The Army launched the camouflage effort in response to a June-2009 inquiry by Pennsylvania's Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who was then chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Murtha pushed the service to look for a better camouflage pattern after receiving complaints from sergeants about the UCP's poor performance in the warzone.

Murtha, died Feb. 8, 2010, just 11 days before the Army approved its plan to issue new uniforms in the MultiCam pattern to Soldiers in Afghanistan.

Acquisition reform

If Congress plans to save defense dollars by cutting the force, then Army generals warn their Soldiers must have top-of-the-line equipment.

For much of the Army's leadership, the term "hollow force" serves as a grim reminder of the start of their careers after the Vietnam War. Today's leaders have vowed not to end their careers on a similar note.

However, the Army must seriously amend a plodding acquisition system that has put future investments in peril. Language in this year's draft of the national defense bill ripped the Army acquisition system by name for spending $3.3 to $3.8 billion annually on average since 2004 on weapons programs that were eventually cancelled.

Army leaders point to the Network Integration Evaluation held twice annually at Fort Bliss, Texas, and White Sands Missile Range, N.M., as an example of the progress the service is making. There, a brigade of battle hardened Soldiers get to test the Army's next generation radios and other equipment much earlier in the development process than before.

One big-ticket item has already seen its fate sealed by Soldiers' reviews at the NIE. Service officials axed the Joint Tactical Radio System's Ground Mobile Radio after Soldiers roundly criticized it.

And that was in just the second iteration of the evaluation. More over-priced and under-performing programs could be axed as a result of poor performances in the NIE.

Heidi Shyu, the Army's acting head of acquisition, took over after serving as the deputy last year. She has proven fearless in trying to change the Army's acquisition culture. Shyu might come off as a pushover with a patented laugh throughout presentations and interviews, but she's shown Army leaders she can be a harbinger for change.

Next generation vehicles

One program that tested Shyu's mettle in 2011 was the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. With the Army and Marine Corps seemingly at an impasse over weight requirements for the Humvee replacement, Congress pegged the program for cancellation.

Until, that is, Shyu and Marine Corps leaders pared down their weight requirements at the eleventh hour in order to save the program by not forcing manufacturers to install exotic parts such as titanium mufflers.

The JLTV and Ground Combat Vehicle programs will each serve as a challenge for the service to maintain in 2012. Congress and top Pentagon leaders are already sharpening their cleavers looking for new programs to cut early in hopes of keeping current ones.

With an ever-smaller cushion of Iraq and Afghanistan spending and war priorities, service leaders will be forced to hold program managers' feet to the fire over missed deadlines and budget growth.

The Ground Combat Vehicle, the Army's second modernization priority behind its network, is already in trouble. The Pentagon has estimated the GCV's per vehicle cost is already north of $13 million, the Army's own red line for what it can afford.

Much like the JLTV program, the Army will have to depend on Shyu to swoop in and save a faltering program if it plans to replace the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle along anything like its current schedule.

Traumatic Brain Injury

Service leaders will have much more than hardware to worry about in 2012. Traumatic brain injury is an issue that will not go away, as a 2011 Defense Department survey found half of U.S. troops have been exposed to bomb blasts in Afghanistan but only one in five seek treatment for concussions.
This isn't a new problem. And it's one the Army continues to take seriously. What has held the service and the medical community back for so long has been the lack of research into concussions.

The sports world serves as a prime example: Despite the millions of dollars invested in him, the best hockey player in the world, Pittsburgh Penguin center Sydney Crosby, can't stay on the ice because of concussion symptoms. And the Penguins' doctors can't figure out why they won't go away.

The Army is in a similar situation, yet it has an entire force returned from Iraq and still deploying to Afghanistan racked with concussion symptoms.

What's changed is the Army wants to make up for lost time and capture as much blast data as possible in the last year's of the Afghanistan war.

The Army Rapid Equipping Force teamed up with the National Football League and Indy Racing League to design blast gauges that attach to a Soldier's helmet and body armor. Small black boxes at command posts and inside vehicles measure the effects of blasts to a Soldier and compare that with their medical diagnosis.

Service doctors and the medical community at large plan to use the data collected in the upcoming years to better diagnose Soldiers and get those afflicted with concussions out of combat quicker so they can recover and return to their jobs.

New leadership

The Army will lose one of its champions for treating traumatic brain injury when Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli retires in 2012. Chiarelli has made TBI and reducing Soldier suicides his top priorities during his time as the Army's no. 2 leader.

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III was nominated to take over Chiarelli's post after serving as the last commander of U.S. Forces-Iraq. Austin oversaw the pack up of Iraq and the transition of responsibilities over to the Iraqi army.

Austin's nomination means the Army's top two officers will have served time as the USF-I commander. In fact, Austin took over for Odierno in September 2010. There is talk the Army plans to have Austin eventually take over for Odierno again as the Army chief of staff.

Odierno plans to hit his stride in 2012 as he continues to roll out his vision for the Army. The Army four-star plans to maintain the focus Dempsey placed on the concept of "Army 2020," but also place priorities on the mission at hand.

He knows he faces a steep challenging in managing a force returning from war. Transition a deploying force to a garrison force is no easy task. While Soldiers will appreciate the additional time with family members, Army leaders know those Soldiers will demand to be challenged in future training regimens.

Those regimens will place further emphasis on full spectrum combat, an art that Odierno has said he worries the Army might have let atrophy to prepare for the counter insurgency warfare that Soldiers faced in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army plans to stand pat with Odierno as its leader next year, yet the transition that started in 2011 will continue have major ramifications on the Army of 2012.

Staff writer Matthew Cox contributed to this report.

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As Cuts Loom, Some Question US Forces in Europe


January 04, 2012
Stars and Stripes|by John Vandiver

STUTTGART, Germany -- When a task force of Marines deployed to eastern Europe on a five-month mission to train partner militaries, it did not come from U.S. bases in nearby Germany. The 185 reservists flew over from a base in the States.

Parterships with nations from the Baltics to the Balkans have been a cornerstone of the mission of U.S. forces in Europe since the end of the Cold War, but such training increasingly is conducted by troops who fly in from the U.S. for short, targeted missions. As questions arise about the need to maintain a large U.S. presence in Europe, some in the military are suggesting this U.S.-based model could be a more cost-effective way to maintain ties with allies who rely on U.S. leadership.

The U.S. has been restructuring its Europe-based force since the end of the Cold War, when there were about 300,000 U.S. troops in Europe. There are about 80,000 today, and the drawdown continues with at least one brigade scheduled to return to the States by 2015, though military leaders hint it could leave much sooner.

With massive budget cuts looming, the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from Iraq and a drawdown of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan slated to be completed by 2014, military leaders are re-evaluating the scope and focus of the military, and that is raising questions about how large a force is needed in Europe and where it should be located.
Moves are under way to relocate and re-allocate Europe-based troops and resources to address pressing security concerns, particularly preparing for the threat of terrorists in Africa and bolstering NATO’s missile defense system to counter a potentially nuclear-armed Iran. Pending changes also are influenced by concerns about the rise of military might in the Pacific, particularly China.

One option for cutting costs, some argue, is to use U.S.-based forces to help build partnerships with militaries in eastern Europe and Africa. Recently, Marine Forces Europe showed how that could be done when it launched its Black Sea Rotational Force, which consisted of U.S.-based Marines on a five-month mission to conduct training exercises across eastern Europe.

According to data provided by EUCOM, the National Guard led 207 “military-to-military” engagements with armed forces across Europe in fiscal 2011, one example of the large role played by U.S.-based servicemembers.

“As budgets get tight, it’ll be a very hard sell that training other militaries should remain a priority, and that we need forces permanently stationed in Europe at current levels in order to conduct that training,” said Kori Schake, a National Security Council director of defense strategy and requirements during the Bush administration.

There are arguments to be made for maintaining some force presence in Europe.

Officials at EUCOM headquarters in Stuttgart and analysts of U.S.-European relations say working closely with European allies ensures that U.S. troops have credible, well-trained partners and bolsters NATO, which relies on U.S. leadership.

“While tough fiscal decisions are in the process of being made, and as we balance capability and capacity, U.S. force presence in Europe remains the bridge between the U.S. and the world’s largest economy,” said Maj. Ryan Donald, a EUCOM spokesman, referring to the collective GDP of Europe. “We know any adjustments to defense spending, missions and force structure in this theater will be implemented carefully and thoughtfully.”

How many and where?

While it remains to be seen whether the current budget crisis will result in major adjustments to the force structure, some changes will be coming for the troops and the 130,000 family members who accompany them at bases from Germany and the United Kingdom to Italy and Spain.
While all service branches are represented in Europe, the Army and its 42,000 soldiers is the largest, followed by the Air Force with about 25,000 airmen. Marine Forces Europe maintains about 150 troops in Germany, relying on rotating forces to carry out its missions. The Navy also maintains a relatively light footprint, with about 8,000 sailors in Europe, though its strategic importance may be increased, given plans to permanently assign four missile defense-equipped destroyers to the 6th Fleet in Naples, Italy.

According to Schake, military leaders in Europe are in a tough position.

“I don’t think it’s an inevitable outcome, and EUCOM components have some very persuasive folks in their leadership now, but it’ll be a hard sell,” she said. “USAREUR has a good case to make that forces assigned to them are busy. They’re deploying and doing great work. Whether they need to be in Europe to do that work will be the crucial argument.”

Opinions are divided on the ramifications of large-scale redistribution of forces.

While some military insiders argue that a significant drawdown in Europe would foretell the end of NATO, others say the alliance is no longer dependent on a large U.S. presence overseas.

Michael Cox, an expert on U.S. and European relations at the Chatham House think tank in London, said the U.S. presence is more about being close to hot spots.

“The fact is the U.S. forces aren’t in Europe to defend Europe from anything,” he said. “They’re more symbolic in that sense.”

A substantial drawdown could prompt concerns among Europeans about the U.S. losing interest in the region, but the U.S. role in NATO would probably remain intact, Cox said.

Officials at EUCOM, meanwhile, say whatever changes come, the U.S. will remain engaged in Europe.

Former commanders weigh in

When retired Gen. James Jones was running EUCOM between 2003 and 2006, the military was in the midst of its biggest transformation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Jones, who would go on to serve as President Barack Obama’s first national security adviser, was the main architect of a downsizing in Europe that continues today. In recent years, dozens of bases have closed as part of that plan. In 2003, there was a push to cut much deeper.

“I used to argue with Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld over this,” said Jones, recalling his battles at the Pentagon with the former defense secretary. “His idea was to bring everybody home.”

Jones cautions against a wholesale reduction, which he says would jeopardize U.S. standing in NATO and strain EUCOM’s training mission.
“It’s a question of how much is enough and how much do you need to do what you want to do,” Jones said. “Whatever forces we leave on the continent, they are not going to be European forces, they’re going to be Euro-African forces. This is a platform for Africa as well. Being closer to Africa in Europe is a lot better than being in Fort Carson.”

Without offering specific numbers, Jones said the mission in EUCOM should be executed by a mix of rotational and permanently stationed units.
Regarding a large-scale drawdown, he said, “I would be very careful. Where is Russia going to go in the next 10 years under [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin?”

Retired Gen. Charles Wald, who served under Jones as EUCOM’s deputy commander and was part of the transformation team in Europe, said if the force level were reduced to 30,000 or 50,000 troops, the U.S. would still demonstrate its commitment to Europe and retain influence.
“If we consider ourselves a global player, then we need to maintain our presence globally,” Wald said. “We’re not in Europe to protect Germany anymore. We’re there to protect our interests.”

Without U.S. leadership in Europe, NATO never would have taken the lead in Libya, Wald argues.

For Jones, wholesale cuts to the military’s presence in Europe and across the globe would come with big risks. Without it, “you create vacuums around the world,” Jones said. “If all you want to do is fight, then bring them home.”

Retired Adm. Steve Abbot, former deputy commander of EUCOM and the U.S.’s 6th Fleet, agreed.

“I’m a Navy guy, so I believe that it’s important for us to be involved globally and be forward present off our shores,” Abbot said. “We can’t just garrison ourselves in the United States.”


© This article is provided courtesy of Stars and Stripes, which got its start as a newspaper for Union troops during the Civil War, and has been published continuously since 1942 in Europe and 1945 in the Pacific. Stripes reporters have been in the field with American soldiers, sailors and airmen in World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo, and are now on assignment in the Middle East.

Stars and Stripes has one of the widest distribution ranges of any newspaper in the world. Between the Pacific and European editions, Stars and Stripes services over 50 countries where there are bases, posts, service members, ships, or embassies.

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Obama vows US will stay world's top military power


Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images Defense Secretary Leon Panetta smiles as President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the Defense Strategic Review at the Pentagon in Washington.

By The Associated Press

President Barack Obama vowed Thursday the United States will remain the world's pre-eminent military power even as the Pentagon scales back spending, shrinks the Army and Marine Corps and pulls back from Europe.

In a rare appearance at the Pentagon, Obama said the U.S. is "turning a page" after having killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, withdrawn troops from Iraq and begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. He outlined a vision for the future that would ensure an uncompromised U.S. military strength operating with less money.

"Our military will be leaner, but the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority," Obama said, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey at his side.

Obama said his administration would not repeat the mistakes made after World War II and Vietnam when defense reductions left the military ill-prepared.

"As commander in chief, I will not let that happen again," he said. "Not on my watch."

Both Panetta and Dempsey said they anticipate heavy criticism of their new strategy, which is meant to guide future defense budgets, including the 2013 spending plan that Obama will submit to Congress in February.

The criticism from Republicans came quickly.

Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services, issued a statement saying, "This is a lead-from-behind strategy for a left-behind America." He called it a "retreat from the world in the guise of a new strategy."

Dempsey praised the strategy and the work of crafting it, calling it inclusive and comprehensive.

"It's not perfect," the general said. "There will be people who think it goes too far. Others will say it doesn't go nearly far enough. That probably makes it about right. It gives us what we need."

Obama said the strategy overhaul is designed to contend with hundreds of billions of dollars in budget cuts and refocus the United States' national security priorities after a decade dominated by the post.-Sept. 11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The strategy, devised through a comprehensive review by civilian and military leaders, centered on the military the country needs after the "long wars of the last decade are over," Obama said.

Panetta said that smaller military budgets will mean some trade-offs and that the U.S. will take on "some level of additional but acceptable risk." But Panetta said that at this point in history, in a changing world, the Pentagon would have been forced to make a strategy shift anyway. He says the money crisis merely forced the government's hand.

The president announced that the military will be reshaped over time with an emphasis on countering terrorism, maintaining a nuclear deterrent, protecting the U.S. homeland, and "deterring and defeating aggression by any potential adversary."

Those are not new military missions, and Obama announced no new capabilities or defense initiatives. He described a U.S. force that will retain much of its recent focus, with the exception of fighting a large-scale, prolonged conflict like the newly ended Iraq mission or the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

"As we end today's wars and reshape our armed forces, we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies," the president wrote in a preamble to the new strategy, entitled, "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense."

The strategy strongly suggests a reduced U.S. military presence in Europe, notwithstanding a continuing close relationship with NATO, and says Asia will be a bigger priority. It also emphasizes improving U.S. capabilities in the areas of cyberwarfare, missile defense, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Obama's decision to announce the strategy himself underscores the political dimension of Washington's debate over defense cuts. The administration says smaller Pentagon budgets are a must but will not come at the cost of sapping the strength of a military in transition, even as it gets smaller.

In a presidential election year, the strategy gives Obama a rhetorical tool to defend his Pentagon budget-cutting choices. Republican contenders for the White House already have criticized him on a wide range of national security issues, including missile defense, Iran and planned reductions in ground forces.

Obama also wants the new strategy to represent a pivotal point in his stewardship of defense policy, which has been burdened throughout his presidency by the wars he inherited and the drag these conflicts have placed on military resources.

The new strategy moves the U.S. further from its longstanding goal of being able to successfully fight two major regional wars — like the 1991 Gulf War to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait or a theoretical ground war in Korea — at the same time.

The document released Thursday made clear that while some current missions of the military will be curtailed, none will be scrapped entirely.

"Wholesale divestment of the capability to conduct any mission would be unwise, based on historical and projected uses of U.S. military forces and our inability to predict the future," the document said.

It said the U.S. will maintain a robust nuclear arsenal but hinted at reductions.

"It is possible that our deterrence goals can be achieved with a smaller nuclear force, which would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in our inventory as well as their role in U.S. national security strategy," the strategy said.

The administration and Congress already are slashing projected defense spending to reflect the closeout of the Iraq war and the drawdown in Afghanistan. The massive $662 billion defense budget planned for next year is $27 billion less than Obama wanted and $43 billion less than Congress gave the Pentagon this year.

The Pentagon announced no specifics on the size of expected troop reductions; the Army and Marine Corps already are set to shrink beginning in 2015. The document said the Pentagon will have to find savings in pay and health care benefits for members of the military, but it offered no specifics.

Factors guiding the Obama administration's approach to reducing the defense budget are not limited to war-fighting strategy. They also include judgments about how to contain the growing cost of military pay and health and retirement benefits. The administration is expected to form a commission to study the issue of retirement benefits, possibly led by a prominent retired military officer.

The administration is in the final stages of deciding specific cuts in the 2013 budget, which Obama will submit to Congress next month. The strategy to be announced by Panetta and Dempsey is meant to accommodate about $489 billion in defense cuts over the coming 10 years, as called for in a budget deal with Congress last summer. An additional $500 billion in cuts may be required starting in January 2013.

A prominent theme of the Pentagon's new strategy is what Panetta has called a renewed commitment to security in the Asia-Pacific region.

The administration is not anticipating military conflict in Asia, but Panetta believes the U.S. got so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 that it missed chances to improve its strategic position in other regions.

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