by Julian E. Barnes
The Pentagon unveiled perhaps the most sweeping changes in spending priorities in decades, as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today outlined a long list of programs that he hopes to eliminate, and proposed new spending for programs that he hopes will improve the military's ability to fight irregular wars.
Gates outlined a huge reordering of spending priorities. Getting less money are programs primarily used to fight conventional foes, other nations that would potentially field technologically advanced weapons.
Programs across the military are cut back, including many big-budget programs that military analysts had predicted were on the chopping block - including the Army's next generation of armored vehicles, the Air Force's F-22 fighter plane and the Navy's next generation of destroyers and cruisers.
Gates also decided to terminate the new presidential helicopter (President Barack Obama has said he can make do with the old Marine One fleet, as pictured here) and the Air Force's combat search and rescue helicopter
As important as the cuts, Gates said, are the areas where he is putting additional money. Many of those initiatives fall into the category of intelligence gathering and surveillance.
Gates said he is recommending putting more money into armed unmanned aerial vehicles -- to boost U.S. capability by more than 127 percent.
He also is adding $500 million to deploy more helicopters, speeding the purchase of a new Navy ship designed to fight in coastal waters, and growing U.S. special operations forces by 2,800 troops, a 5 percent increase.
How important the changes recommended by Gates ultimately will be depends on if his proposal is accepted or rejected by Congress. Gates' recommendations will next go to the White House Office of Management and Budget and then be presented to Capitol Hill.
In a series of speeches since he took office in late 2006, Gates has criticized Pentagon spending, saying that the Defense Department suffers from "nextwar-itis," spending too much time worrying about unlikely threats.
Gates said 50 percent of the money in the budget should go to programs meant to counter conventional threats, about 10 percent to programs useful only in irregular war and 40 percent to programs that are useful to both.
"I am just trying to get the irregular warfare guys a seat at the table," Gates said.
The overall size of the budget, $534 billion, was announced earlier, but Gates had not outlined what weapons programs he intended to cut. The budget marks the end of a long run-up in defense spending that began in 2001.
Eliminating defense programs has proven difficult for previous defense secretaries-- Dick Cheney famously tried to kill the Marine Corps tilt-rotor V-22 only to see the aircraft resurrected.
And Gates likely will face his own challenges getting his budget through Congress, as members jockey to save home state programs.
Indeed, minutes after Gates finished his statement Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe condemned the proposal.
"I cannot believe what I heard today," Inhofe said in a statement. "President Obama is disarming America. Never before has a president so ravaged the military at a time of war."
Gates said he knew his recommendations would be controversial, but said he did not take politics into account.
"My hope is that, as we have tried to do here in this building, that the members of Congress will rise above parochial interests and consider what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole," Gates said.
Gates said he is shifting money from areas where the U.S. had more capabilities than it needed to places where the military does not have enough resources.
Aides to Gates said that he felt that the U.S. was not adequately preparing itself for the real threats it might face
"He came here to fix the war, but in the process of trying to fix the wars he ran into institutional hurdles," one Defense official said. "He realized to fix the war he had to fix the institution."
The military spending cuts at the end of the Cold War were far larger than the cuts that Gates outlined Monday. While those cuts left the military smaller, they did not lead to dramatic changes in its priorities.
Although dramatic, Gates changes' are far less deep than those made by President Dwight Eisenhower, who cut dramatically from the Army as he built up the Air Force and U.S. strategic nuclear forces.
Gates' predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, spoke about transforming the military, making it into a lighter, more deployable force. But the realities of the war in Iraq put a halt to many of Rumsfeld's initiatives.
And while Rumsfeld succeeded in killing some programs--such as the Comanche helicopter--other systems like a new artillery cannon simply shifted to become parts of other weapons programs.
There were some surprises in the budget. Missile defense spending is reduced by $1.4 billion, but those cuts are not as deep as some expected.
Gates said he was reorienting the program to focus more on deployable theater missile defense systems. Cut back are the Airborne laser program and spending on the interceptor missiles stationed in Alaska.
Many of the terminated programs will be examined in the next Quadrennial Defense Review, and the Pentagon will begin looking at what kind of alternative programs should be developed.
Comments
And these moves have the blessing of McCain, so the whining from the GOP should be limited.
http://www.political-buzz.com/
Posted by: matt | April 6, 2009 4:09 PM
Yeah, they can cut the recruiter's Hummer's too.
http://pius7.slu.edu/govdocs/?p=203
Posted by: John boy | April 6, 2009 4:37 PM
Thank you Matt for being so Black-White. There are obviously no other colors, ideologies or political points of view other than Republican = McCain? and Democrat = Obama?
Pretty simple minded I must say - good for you! easier to digest?
Posted by: springfield | April 6, 2009 4:42 PM
I fully expect the little Repuglican minions to start peeing their pants over this.....never mind the fact that the US spends more on our military than the rest of the world combined does.
Posted by: DrainYou | April 6, 2009 5:02 PM
...and bizarro world continues to move along. Let's spend more to bailout worthless window lickers and corporations and cut spending on our defense to pay for it. Makes sense to me.
Posted by: RCK | April 6, 2009 5:08 PM
"Never before has a president so ravaged the military at a time of war."
We're "at war" with tribal insurgents -- does Inhofe really think we need the F-22 to defeat al Qaeda? Or stealth destroyers to root out the Taliban?
What a stupid thing to say...
Posted by: John H | April 6, 2009 5:09 PM
Obama cut more waste in the first 3 months than Bush ever did in 8 years.
Posted by: joe | April 6, 2009 5:40 PM
Matt,
Im a democrat.
I voted for Obama,
Your ignorance makes all democrats look like fools.
I agree with Springfield.
Posted by: Charles | April 6, 2009 5:43 PM
Springfield, McCain might not represent all Republicans, but he has more credibility than most Republicans on defense (it was pretty much his entire campaign -- the experienced guy who championed the surge). If he thinks this defense budget is right, smart Republicans should line up behind him.
I really don't see where this budget is so wrong, and certainly not "disarming America". Of course, one should expect nothing less than that sort of reflexive idiocy from Inhofe, one of the bigger hacks on the right side of the aisle. Shifting significant funds to irregular war is long, long overdue. Our wars have dealt with substantial irregular parts back to at least Vietnam, where guerilla tactics dominated the North's strategy. No one that we'd actually fight in a war is going to line up across from us in conventional warfare, as it would be suicide.
Posted by: Chicagoan | April 6, 2009 5:57 PM
Perhaps the "brillant minds" here and in Washington should read their history, especially between the two world wars. Spending should be controlled, research should be boosted, but we should not throw out the mainstays. The F-4 Phantom was designed without a gun because "the future" would be missle fights. Vietnam quickly showed how short sighted those in the political realm truly are.
Posted by: Paul | April 6, 2009 5:58 PM
"I cannot believe what I heard today," Inhofe said in a statement. "President Obama is disarming America. Never before has a president so ravaged the military at a time of war."
Uh, wise senator, the Pentagon's budget is still going to be increasing by 5% next fiscal year. That is also coming at a time when GDP is forecast to be down about 3% year-over-year. That means that the Pentagon's budget is increasing by 8% in real terms.
Pardon me if I don't get to caught up in the fact that the military is being "ravaged" by increasing its budget 8%.
You, Senator Inhofe, are a partisan hack.
Posted by: AW | April 6, 2009 6:57 PM
Hey Joe...Obama also appropriated more in 3 months than all his predecessors combined.
Posted by: John | April 6, 2009 7:23 PM
I keep hearing that the United States spends more on our military then the rest of the world combined. However, like the "fact" that 90% of all guns confiscated in Mexico originate from the US, this also is simply not true. If global defense spending is approximately $1339 billion and the proposed US defense budget is $534 billion, then the US accounts for about 40% of the global spending. Still, a large number but also skewed in some ways. China has the world's largest standing army. If they paid their soldiers the same amount we paid ours (and ours are grossly underpaid) then China would quickly surpass us.
Posted by: Shane | April 6, 2009 7:27 PM
Maybe we can take the guns from the soldiers on the front line and sell them to either jihadists or gang members and give that money to the big businesses to give to their CEOs. We want to want to be mean to the bad guys. Besides I thought McCain was the one for the big businesses. Change has come!!! i am going to Walgreens to buy my Chia Obama.
Posted by: Jason B | April 6, 2009 7:47 PM
Good move. Time to shut down some of these bloated and inefficient military programs.
Posted by: Josey | April 6, 2009 10:59 PM
Many of the readers were not around -- or at least grown up - when Jimmy Carter disarmed America after Vietnam. Then he tried to get America to "go green" only he called it "synfuels." Then, he turned the stagflation under Gerald Ford into 15-17 percent interest rates. Hell, the money markets beat the Dow Jones hands down back in the '70's.
Ronald Reagan waxed Carter and if President Obama doesn't watch out, he'll get the same treatment from some Republican in four years. He's off to a good start. Perhaps some evil empire country or even a nondescript nation will take the U.S. Embassy hostage. That proved to be the jump start that led to the peanut farmer's downfall. Fasten your seat belts.
Posted by: Oak Park Lefty | April 6, 2009 11:04 PM
@Oak Park Lefty: You can't rappel to the embassy's roof with the F22 (or even V22 :) ). But I agree, on the potential economic impact. Still, redistribution of funds to programs with immediate operational priority (ask the captains, not the generals) is a long overdue must.
Posted by: Manbaker | April 7, 2009 8:18 AM
Posted by: Oak Park Lefty | April 6, 2009 11:04 PM
Sorry friend, your history is wrong. It was Nixon and Ford who slashed military spending during and after Vietnam. Military spending went up every year under Carter.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904490.html
Defense Spending in 1969 when Nixon took office: $438.1 Billion
Defense spending 1973: $313.3 Billion
Defense Spending 1977 when Carter took office: $286.2 Billion
Defense Spending in 1981 when Carter left office: $317.4 Billion
Posted by: Lou | April 7, 2009 9:14 AM
I find it funny that you libs feel the need to attack Senator Inhofe for speaking out against the president. Isn't that all you did day and night when President Bush was in office? You like to shoot the bullets you just can't take them. The budget as a whole isn't the issue, the issue is that missile defense is being cut at the peak of a missile conflict with North Korea and Iran. But that's okay, we can just go to the UN and have them take care of it, because we all know their great history with solving potential military conflicts. Keep calling me names for being a conservative, the fact that I bother ignorant people excites me!
Posted by: Proud Right-Wing Hack | April 7, 2009 4:35 PM
Inhofe is right on the money. It is not al Qaeda that is the real threat, it is China. And its not tomorrow, but 5-10 years from now. They've been successfully conducting an economic war against us, and they are now building a military to challenge us directly. If we ignore the threat now, we won't have time to build the aircraft and ships to catch up. (Look how long it takes to build a fighter, sub, or destroyer, these days.)
We need the F-22, and I'm an ex-navy guy. We need destroyers and we need more attack subs. We don't need the LCS, or nearly as many of them. Those are for chasing pirates, not for confronting a blue water navy bent on world domination.
And as far as McCain goes, he began rambling when the stock market crashed last fall. He hasn't made sense since then. I wouldn't rely on his judgment.
Posted by: Professor R. | April 8, 2009 1:52 PM
So... Mr. Obama... what are we supposed to do about the new air superiority fighters Russia IS building? And the new Chinese fighters? And the new AAA weapons those two countries are happily proliferating to every potential enemy we have, including Iran and North Korea? We don't have a fighter that can penetrate enemy radar nets now. Useless my ass, the thing is radar-invisible, and it's the best dogfighter EVER. i.e. you'll lose fewer to enemy fire, and be able to do more dangerous mission. What can't you do with a crazy plane like the F-22?! bomb a sensitive target and maintain plausable deniability! The 91 Gulf War was a perfect example of stealth plane necessity. Fix the sloppy manufacturing process, but save the plane. Cuts to the Navy destroyers? (my bro is on a 40+ year old pile of seagull crap) Then how will you counter the new nuclear ballistic missile/attack subs the PLAN and Russia already brought online? And where is my "dragon skin" body armor with this "new budget" anyways? Or that slick new rifle you promised me? My M16A2 is practically falling apart! Or those urban combat auto-shotguns, or a f*ckin poncho-tent thing that doesn't leak, or giving us back wet weather boots? or a lighter rucksack kit, or a uniform that actually blends in and is durable (ACUs suck!)? Budgeting for grunts? B.S.! Obama, I like you, but you're all talk bro. Read up on the equipment specs, please! Besides, all that spending on “Intelligence” assets couldn’t protect you from Chinese hackers getting into the Pentagon network. Hope is Dope man. It doesn't feed you or kill enemy, it just makes you warm and fuzzy inside, so you can die with a dumb look on your face. Anyways, we need the plane. It makes sense; i.e. enemy has radar, we have stealth plane, we win. It's the perfect foil if the PRC, North Korea, Iran, the Russians, (insert wacko dictator/competitive regime name here), get out of line, they will know we have the edge, not them. They will back off, so we can talk and make the useless UN sing koombaya. And fix healthcare already and quit flip-floppin’ on gays, they're born that way, let ‘em do what they want. If they shoot good let ‘em fight in our military (Heck, let 'em fly the F22!), we need the men - in case you haven't noticed, we're outnumbered. I'll get off my soapbox for now.
Posted by: MDA - Roy, WA - Independent | November 6, 2009 4:55 AM