"Military Budget Reflects a Shift in U.S. Strategy"

[Slavic]

http://http://www.nytimes.com/2009/0...07defense.html

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced a major reshaping of the Pentagon budget on Monday, with deep cuts in many traditional weapons systems but new billions of dollars for others, along with more troops and new technology to fight the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The decisions are expected to set off a vigorous round of lobbying over the priorities embroidered into the Defense Department’s half-trillion dollars of annual spending. They represent the first broad rethinking of American military strategy under the Obama administration, which plans to shift more money to counterterrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan while spending less on preparations for conventional warfare against large nations like China and Russia.

Mr. Gates announced cuts in missile defense programs, the Army’s expensive Future Combat Systems and Navy shipbuilding operations. He would kill controversial programs to build a new presidential helicopter and a new communications satellite system, delay the development of a new bomber and order only four more of the advanced F-22 fighter jets.

But he also said plans to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps, while halting reductions in Air Force and Navy personnel, would cost an additional $11 billion. He also announced an extra $2 billion for intelligence and surveillance equipment, including new Predator and Reaper drones, the remote-controlled vehicles currently used in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq for strikes against militants, and more spending on special forces and training foreign military units.

More broadly, Mr. Gates signaled that he hoped to impose a new culture on the Pentagon — making the system more flexible and responsive to the needs of the troops in the way it chooses and buys weapons.

Even so, he acknowledged that it would be hard, with the economic crisis and concerns in Congress over jobs, to “make tough choices about specific systems and defense priorities based solely on the national interest and then stick to those decisions over time.”

Military experts said Mr. Gates seemed to be mounting a determined effort to rein in some of the most troubled programs after years of record military spending and start dealing with the huge cost overruns and delays that have plagued so many programs.

But some noted that other presidents and defense secretaries had been stymied in making similar efforts in the past, and they said that leaders of military-related committees in Congress would undoubtedly try to save the F-22, C-17 cargo planes and other systems that Mr. Gates would like to cut.

Representative Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Monday in a statement that while Mr. Gates’s proposed budget was a “good faith” effort, “the buck stops with Congress, which has the critical constitutional responsibility to decide whether to support these proposals.”

And some military analysts reacted to Mr. Gates’s promise of budget revolution with skepticism. Andrew H. Krepinevich Jr., a military expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said that it was hard to tell how much Mr. Gates was reducing spending over all because he was increasing spending in unspecified amounts in some areas and had not put a net dollar amount on his entire proposal.

Mr. Krepinevich said he anticipated that Mr. Gates’s reductions would not close the $25 billion to $50 billion Bush-era gap between military programs and the spending for them, and that future cuts would most likely be needed.

He noted that some of Mr. Gates’s cuts were less than draconian. While the secretary chose to emphasize smaller, speedy ships for close-in waters, the slower shipbuilding he proposed for the deep-water Navy would not reduce the number of aircraft-carrier battle groups at sea to 10 from 11 until after 2040.

While he capped the number of the $150 million combat plane, the Air Force’s F-22, at 187, he promised to speed the testing of another fighter, the F-35, and maintain plans to eventually buy 2,443 of the planes. While he canceled the purchases of eight Army vehicles to allow for more study and a rebidding, he said he would also speed the development of costly electronic sensors for troops.

And while he promised to fix the flawed procurement processes that allow weapons prices to soar, he said he wanted to hire tens of thousands of civil servants to do the work, since contracting that out to the private sector has not proven efficient.

“The perennial procurement and contracting cycle, going back many decades, of adding layer and layer of cost and complexity onto fewer and fewer platforms that take longer and longer to build, must come to an end,” he said. “There is broad agreement on the need for acquisition and contracting reform in the Department of Defense. There have been enough studies, enough hand-wringing, enough rhetoric. Now is the time for action.”

The changes will mean fewer big ships, and a reduction in the number of Army brigades, but with the same number of troops so that the combat forces are not hollowed out, and bolstering the Army’s helicopter forces, Mr. Gates said. He added that he wanted to add 2,800 to the ranks of special forces troops and more cybersecurity experts.

Spending on missile defense programs will be scaled back by $1.4 billion over all. Mr. Gates proposed increasing spending to defend against relatively limited attacks by smaller powers with shorter-range missiles, adding interceptors aboard ships but not on land in Alaska. But he would cancel or delay some of the more exotic programs to counter intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Mr. Gates also said that while he planned to halt a Navy program to build a new class of stealth destroyers, he would finish constructing the first three ships if the contractors agreed to allow all of them to be built at one shipyard instead of the dividing the work between two yards. Otherwise, he would only build one of the $3 billion ships.

This year Mr. Gates made the unusual decision to publicly announce his proposed reductions in the Pentagon budget before the recommendations are sent to the White House.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters last week that Mr. Gates, a Republican who has worked for eight presidents of both parties, may have been trying to provide some political cover for Mr. Obama over the cuts.

Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican, reacted strongly against Mr. Gates’s proposal to end spending for the F-22, which employs 25,000 workers in Georgia and across the country.

“It’s outrageous that President Obama is willing to bury the country under a mountain of debt with his reckless domestic agenda but refuses to fund programs critical to our national defense,” Mr. Price said in a statement.

In addition, a bipartisan group of six senators urged Mr. Gates not to make large cuts in missile defense programs. In a letter to Mr. Obama, they said the reductions “could undermine our emerging missile defense capabilities to protect the United States against a growing threat.”

The group included the Republicans Jon Kyl of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma as well as Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska, and Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.

Pentagon seems to be shifting its funding from conventional war strategies to irregular war strategies much like the two wars we are in now. In my opinion it is a waste of time and money to bank roll large scale missle defense systems and air superiority fighters in an age when warfare is conducted on a much lower and harder to fight level. Not to mention the shift in funding also focuses on our soldier's health and saftey which will hopefully fix the horrible policiy of underfunding basic equipment and armor for foot soldiers which we have seen in the past few years.

The media is jumping on this saying its a huge cut in military expense, while in reality it is just a shift in pirorities; there was still an increase in overall funding though.

[Red Tampon]

Agreed, I would have thought Vietnam taught us to not rely on expensive machinery and technology alone.

We really need to spend more money on training/developing tech for our ground troops.

If China/Russia declares war on us THEN we can start pumping out F-22s and other stealth planes again.

[LegalSmash]

We as a country are consistently 20 years behind the strategic reality of wars. In the period directly after the second world war, we designed several tanks designed to roll across the fields of france in europe, when we got into Korea, and vietnam became an issue, we not only continued with said tank, but REISSUED it, despite the fact that it was far too heavy to be of any use in country against the Vietcong or the NVA. Similarly, we've continually developed advanced air fighters when we are already 20-40 years ahead of the rest of the world in offensive and defensive aeronautics technology.

We need to realize that the biggest, best plane is not the course of warfare any longer, nor is a plane going to do all that well against scores and scores of shitty tanks made by china, or russia. As a military, we have seriously neglected ground forces to a fault. It is a travesty that our troops have to provide their own flak vest/ballistics pads, they should be provided, especially if we are going to send them over to Iraq. The M-4/M-16 is a shitty weapon, and we should seriously put time and money into creating a more reliable, stable, and powerful weapon for our infantryman to be more effective.

The best systems, IMHO designed in the US in the past 40 years have been the F18, the M-1 Abrams, the Bradley IFV, the strategic air bomber (B2), the Huey Cobra, and the close air support warthog (A-10). These are weapon systems that will forever be timeless due to their continued use and versatility.

The Pentagon has previously cut funding to REALLY great programs, to fund less than useful additional superplanes... the Self propelled artillery gun that was being developed in the late 90s, I think it is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Line-of-Sight_Cannon

this was a great idea that was dropped

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM2001_Crusader
Things like this, that provide indirect fire support, necessary to the soldiers on the ground, and vehicles to protect our highly trained, highly expensive infantry, should be promoted, while airforce mental bukakke should be cut back on.

IMHO.

[Red Tampon]

We should have NOT have cut the Comanche helicopter program.

That was something our ground forces could have actually used and would have been perfect for our current conflicts; providing close ground support with a stealthier helicopter.

Helicopters are more prone to attack by insurgents than are jets flying 20,000 feet and dropping bombs.

And helicopters can observer close up. Ugh, we have a flying Comanche prototype when then cut the freaking program too, wtf.

[RedOctober]

Agreed, I would have thought Vietnam taught us to not rely on expensive machinery and technology alone.

We really need to spend more money on training/developing tech for our ground troops.

If China/Russia declares war on us THEN we can start pumping out F-22s and other stealth planes again.

well your right Red that the conventional warfare tech wont work so well against the type of war we are fighting against terror but we cant let our air/ naval superiority slip.

we became complacent during the 1920's and almost came to a complete halt on our production of war materials. but once WW2 we woke up and said oh shit! we need more planes/ guns/ ships.

it was a mad dash to replenish out supply of these machines. i know a convention war like that again is not very likely but i just don't want to see that happen again....

[Slavic]

it was a mad dash to replenish out supply of these machines. i know a convention war like that again is not very likely but i just don't want to see that happen again....

The mad dash also helped springboard the economy out of a depression and into a period of high growth. As you said though, I highly doubt that such a situation would happen again. If a conventional war were to start up with any of the major powers I guarantee that it will all be over in 30mins after all the ballistic missiles hit.

[Red Tampon]

well your right Red that the conventional warfare tech wont work so well against the type of war we are fighting against terror but we cant let our air/ naval superiority slip.

Our air/navy won't slip, nobody has even caught up yet, and we just developed new tech that won't be matched for a while.

[andre1028]

We keep WMDs deep below our roads.

[RedOctober]

Our air/navy won't slip, nobody has even caught up yet, and we just developed new tech that won't be matched for a while.

ya we are pretty much decades ahead in terms of military technology than any other country. but we remain there thanks to our bloated military budget and constant advances in technology.

we only stay a step ahead of the game because we never stop creating newt tech. countries like Egypt and Israel get our old toys but as soon as we stop production someone will find a way to catch up to us....

i have my money on china and some of the richer middle east countries(possibly Russia if they get their shit together). their abundant natural resources and their production possibilities will become highly convened if the world economy takes a fall any time soon.

[phatman76]

We as a country are consistently 20 years behind the strategic reality of wars. In the period directly after the second world war, we designed several tanks designed to roll across the fields of france in europe, when we got into Korea, and vietnam became an issue, we not only continued with said tank, but REISSUED it, despite the fact that it was far too heavy to be of any use in country against the Vietcong or the NVA. Similarly, we've continually developed advanced air fighters when we are already 20-40 years ahead of the rest of the world in offensive and defensive aeronautics technology.

We need to realize that the biggest, best plane is not the course of warfare any longer, nor is a plane going to do all that well against scores and scores of shitty tanks made by china, or russia. As a military, we have seriously neglected ground forces to a fault. It is a travesty that our troops have to provide their own flak vest/ballistics pads, they should be provided, especially if we are going to send them over to Iraq. The M-4/M-16 is a shitty weapon, and we should seriously put time and money into creating a more reliable, stable, and powerful weapon for our infantryman to be more effective.

The best systems, IMHO designed in the US in the past 40 years have been the F18, the M-1 Abrams, the Bradley IFV, the strategic air bomber (B2), the Huey Cobra, and the close air support warthog (A-10). These are weapon systems that will forever be timeless due to their continued use and versatility.

I am not saying we shouldn't focus on small-scale, ground-based combat training and equipment, but maintaining those big budget defense systems is absolutely necessary for the United States. We can't just "start pumping out F-22s if we get in a war with China," it takes years to get the production lines running and months to build just one jet; in the event of a non-nuclear war with a technically comparable country, we will be stuck with what we have at that exact moment, by the time we are building new planes we will have already either won or lost. The F-22 program is already over the hump, we have invested all the R&D money and built the facilities, we may as well build all the planes instead of just half. Don't forget, we still need good fighters even if we develop anti-ballistic missiles. The Russians and Chinese, if they developed a superior long range fighter, could move nuclear-armed bombers over the continental United States. The F-22 will be the last manned fighter we ever build, and staying on the cutting edge for the next thirty years with it will ensure a smooth transition to an automated Air Force.

As for Anti-ICBMs, the benefits are self evident. There is a very real chance Pakistan will fold within 20 years and that Iran will acquire nuclear arms. Being able to shoot their weapons out of the sky will be an invaluable bargaining chip and deterrent. In addition, without continuing anti-ICBM development, we will always have a weak spot that the Russians can push on.

I am completely okay with Gates' proposals except for those two systems. It is true that we need to get a better contracting system to prevent over-spending, but these systems are absolutely necessary. In addition Legal, many of those useful ground support aircraft were developed with the tech developments first made for advanced fighters. Likewise, building an advanced support and control system and weapons systems for automated drones will only be possible by using the communications, radar and command tech developed in other fighter/big budget military applications.

I agree that the Army has been neglected over the last 20 years, programs like Land Warrior and the development of an M-16 carbine replacement should not have been canceled. In addition, utilization of ground-based drones needs to speed up.

In time, the value of the F-22 and anti-missile programs will become self-evident.