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President Barack Obama's choice of expert budget-cutter Leon Panetta to lead the Defense Department is a clear signal that the White House perceives the nation's deficit crisis, not the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as its toughest challenge/…/As OMB chief, Panetta calculated how much money each agency and department would get. Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment sees him as a potential advocate for the Pentagon. "I think having him on the DOD side of the budget battle now will be a real asset to DOD. He knows how OMB works, knows the inner workings of the budget process at the White House. So I think he will be better equipped to negotiate DOD's top line budget than any of the other candidates" who were considered, Harrison said. Harrison said it is "kind of an unknown" what Panetta's views are on some of the major budget decisions that he'll face at the Pentagon. "It remains to be seen how he's going to favor people, force structure, modernization" or weapons programs, Harrison said of Panetta, who served as a first lieutenant in the Army from 1964-66.

Obama has picked CIA Director Leon Panetta to replace outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; Afghan commander Gen. David Petraeus to take the helm of the CIA; and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Allen to take command in Afghanistan, where he will be joined in Kabul by former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.

Obama's anticipated nominations of CIA Director Leon Panetta to replace the retiring Robert Gates as Defense secretary and Gen. David Petraeus as CIA director, which are expected to be announced Thursday, signal continuity both for the administration's strategy in Afghanistan and its determination to take on wide-ranging missions with limited resources/…/Beyond the current wars, Panetta will be tasked with manning, equipping and training U.S. forces for future fights while dealing with smaller budgets. Obama has called for $400 billion in defense cuts over the next 12 years/…/The task, says Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, is "What kind of military to do we need in the next 10 years, and what weapons systems could we do without?"

Momentum has been gathering to make considerable reductions in the defense budget. "If Gates has cut away the fat" from much of military spending, "then increasingly we're cutting away at muscle," says Andrew Krepinevich, president for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment in Washington.

The job facing the next U.S. defense secretary just became a little more daunting. In addition to overseeing operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya, the successor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates will likely walk into the job at the end of the summer just as the Pentagon wraps up a "fundamental" review of its missions and capabilities to help identify $400 billion in savings in security spending over the next 10 years/.../ "If this is really going to influence the FY 13 budget, then they're going to need to finish the review by June or July," said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments/…/"The new defense secretary is going to have a steep learning curve," and that probably means Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn will end up doing a lot of the heavy lifting, Harrison said. "He would ideally provide a lot of the continuity between Gates and whoever follows him."

Libyan rebels will soon be bolstered by the efforts of some 30 to 40 military advisors from Britain, France, and Italy. Critics argue that such a small force can hardly turn the tide of a conflict that seems to be running against the NATO-backed rebels, but in the past such advisory missions have often served as significant force multipliers.But there may be more to these advisors than meets the eye/.../“The number of advisors need not be large at all depending on the objectives to be achieved,” said Dakota Wood, a retired lieutenant colonel in the US Marine Corps and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, in an interview with Bellum. He cited the exploits of Lawrence of Arabia during World War I, various CIA efforts during the Cold War, and most recently US support to the Northern Alliance just after the September 11th attacks. Even in small numbers, Mr. Wood explained, advisors “can have a disproportionate impact on the effectiveness of such a group.” They will provide a key link between the rebels and the capabilities of the NATO coalition — reconnaissance, intelligence and so forth — and, in reverse, provide the Western allies with “real-time intelligence of actual conditions” within the rebel movement. Further, the Libyan rebels have virtually zero experience, are poorly organized, lack discipline, and have proven unable to coordinate their actions in any meaningful, sustained manner. Mr. Wood argued that the advisory mission would present the rebels with an opportunity “to better organize their fight.” Politically, it also gives the nations involved a way to demonstrate their commitment without deploying ground troops.