CIA Director Leon Panetta knows what his overriding task will be as President Obama’s next defense secretary: cutting the defense budget down to size. No one needs to wait for his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday to hear about that. But defense analysts are itching to hear how Panetta will adjust U.S. defense strategy to make the impending budget cuts make sense/…/
“Gates has laid down a marker” for defense cuts, says Andrew Krepinevich, the president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a leading defense think tank. “Let strategy drive [budgetary] priorities. That’s going to be a challenge/…/”
Krepinevich wants Panetta to secure a decision from the White House to defer major cuts until after the drawdowns from Iraq and Afghanistan, when the Army and Marine Corps could likely be cut below the reduced force levels Gates envisions after 2015. If not, then Panetta could face a situation where he has to cut from planes, ships and missiles up front that might be needed in combat — and, in the process, probably not save that much money in the short term.
“If you cancel the F-35 [Joint Strike Fighter, the military's biggest weapons program], you’re not going to get $300 billion, the cost of the entire program over its life cycle, you’ll get the fraction spent in the coming fiscal year,” Krepinevich explains. “If you cut personnel, you get the money right away. With 20,000 fewer troops, you don’t have to pay salaries, medical benefits, and even some modernization because don’t have to outfit or equip” those troops.