CSBA in the News

Top Pentagon brass should craft plans so the Defense Department is ready if a so-called trigger in the debt-ceiling law is pulled, a move that would return the annual military budget to the 2007 level according to a new report.

For Turkey’s hard-line secularists it spelled a humiliating end to Ataturk’s republic. For their detractors it was an irreversible victory for democracy. Either way, the mass resignation of Turkey’s military leadership on July 29th captured the dramatic shift in power that has been taking place ever since the conservative Justice and Development (AK) party took office nine years ago. The once-omnipotent army, which has toppled four governments since 1960, no longer calls the shots.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned against a “devastating” second round of defense cuts on Thursday as the Pentagon stepped up its campaign to convince Congress to look elsewhere for savings as it works to trim the $1.4 trillion deficit/…/The Pentagon already had been planning for cuts in the $400 billion range, spread over 12 years, at Obama’s direction in April.

Cuts to defense spending in the debt reduction bill could total nearly $1 trillion over 10 years — more than double what President Obama had proposed earlier this year — and sap American military might worldwide, say analysts and members of Congress.

The prospect of $600 billion in additional defense cuts over the next decade is enough to make Pentagon generals wince and to compel the U.S. military to make big changes to its global strategy. But the cuts can be made without gutting the current force, defense budget analysts said.The larger and more painful cuts of an additional $600 billion would be triggered only if Republicans and Democrats cannot come to an agreement on a second round of spending cuts in the next four months.

Next year’s military cuts are more substantial, if lawmakers look at a different number: $553 billion, the amount Mr. Obama requested from Congress for the Pentagon in the budget for the 2012 fiscal year. Congress has not passed that budget, and at least one Congressional committee has already reduced the White House request.