FOR THE first time since the end of the cold war, the Pentagon is confronting the reality that inexorable increases in defence spending are no longer a sure thing and that cuts that actually shrink the military’s bottom line could be on the horizon.
Under direction from the White House, defence secretary Robert Gates has announced that the Pentagon will cut projected spending by $78 billion (€60 billion) over the next five years and shrink the size of the army and marine corps.
The changes mean that the military would have annual budget increases that barely exceed inflation in coming years and that its budget will effectively remain frozen in 2015 and 2016.
Mr Gates said the cuts are a result of the “extreme fiscal duress” facing the country. But they are also an acknowledgment of a rapidly shifting political sentiment on Capitol Hill, where senior Democrats and Republicans alike have suggested in recent weeks that defence spending – which accounts for a fifth of the federal budget – is no longer a sacred cow.
Mr Gates said the White House’s proposed budget for the Pentagon next year would be $553 billion, excluding the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, less than a 1 per cent increase over what it requested for 2011. Although he said the military could live with flat budgets in the coming years, Mr Gates warned that deeper cuts in troop levels, overseas bases and weapons programmes would be “risky at best and potentially calamitous”.
Members of Congress have traditionally protected the defence budget with zeal, mindful of the economic benefits that the military brings to their districts. The new Republican chairman of the House armed services committee, California congressman Howard McKeon, said he was “not happy” with the proposed cuts.
“I will not stand idly by . . . when Americans are deployed in harm’s way,” Mr McKeon said.
Other key Republicans, however, including House majority leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, have said the military won’t be exempt from spending cuts.
Calls to prune even deeper have already begun. Leaders of a bipartisan deficit commission appointed by President Barack Obama have recommended cutting $100 billion in defence spending by 2015.
Even as he has told officers to brace for hard times, Mr Gates has sought to spare the Pentagon from the budget axe by taking pre-emptive measures. “We must come to realise that not every defence programme is necessary . . . and more of everything is simply not sustainable,” Mr Gates said.