Defense Secretary Robert Gates staged a pre-emptive attack Thursday in Washington’s looming budget battles, announcing cuts of $78 billion to the U.S. military and defense department, including reducing the size of the Army and Marine Corps.
In addition, Gates said the Army, Navy and Air Force had found $100 billion of savings that they would retain, allowing them to continue developing major weapons and modernizing their forces over the next five years.
Under the Gates plan, the Marine Corps would slash 15,000 to 20,000 people, a 10% reduction. The Army would shrink by 27,000 active duty personnel, 4% cut, on top of an already planned reduction of 22,000 — for a total of 49,000 fewer soldiers.
The smaller fighting force won’t take effect until 2015, to coincide with the scheduled handover of security to local forces in Afghanistan.
The Defense Department had instructed the individual branches of the military to identify $100 billion in cuts over the next five years, with Gates’ pledge that they could keep the savings they identified instead of it being returned either to the larger Defense Department pool or the U.S. Treasury.
Some of the plan could collide with the wishes of members of Congress, which often include protecting jobs in their districts, although part of the proposals can be implemented by Gates alone.
Some big programs, identified by Gates and the services as “troubled or unneeded,” are under the budget ax, including the Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. And some parts of the multiservice Joint Strike Fighter will be stretched out over a longer time. Gates announced that the vertical take-off version of the jet requested by the Marine Corps — and plagued by design and cost problems — will be placed on what amounts to a two-year probation.
Gates warned that if the program couldn’t meet its goals it would be cancelled.
The Pentagon plan for savings came from reducing overhead and finding new efficiencies and improved business practices as well as combing through weapons programs.
Substantial new investment harvested from these savings will stave off additional cuts to the number of personnel in uniform as well as allow additional modernization.
These cuts have no direct impact on the continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are funded separately.
The Pentagon budget will increase next year and taper off at the end of the five-year period now under consideration.
(Read More: CNN)
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3 Responses
Weaken America by cutting defense and paying people who do not want to work. Is this the USA of the future. Think again
#1,
WADR, you don’t know what you are talking about. Almost since the day it was created, the Defense Department has mainly been used as a source of Congressional Pork and Corporate Welfare. I worked for defense contractors decades ago during the Cold War and even back then, the Defense Department budget could easily have been cut 50% without affecting military readiness had the cuts been smartly made. Yet now that the Cold War ended 20 years ago and we don’t face anything like the threats we faced then, we still have a military that is prepared to fight the Soviet Union rather than the real threat which is rogue terrorists. Kudos to Gates for realizing this, kudos to Bush for making him Secretary of Defense, and kudos to Obama for keeping him in the job even though Gates is a Republican.
“The Defense Department had instructed the individual branches of the military to identify $100 billion in cuts over the next five years, with Gates’ pledge that they could keep the savings they identified…”
If done right, this makes a lot of sense. You are telling each branch to become more efficient. Get rid of the waste and get the most out of the money allotted.