Panetta announces plan for defense cuts that would shrink ground forces, retire some planes

[onehandle]

Last edited Thu Jan 26, 2012, 04:25 PM - Edit history (1)

WASHINGTON — Pentagon leaders outlined a plan Thursday for absorbing $487 billion in defense cuts over the coming decade by shrinking U.S. ground forces, slowing the purchase of a next-generation stealth fighter and retiring older planes and ships.

In a bid to pre-empt election-year Republican criticism, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the plan shifts the Pentagon’s focus from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to future challenges in Asia, the Mideast and in cyberspace. More special operations forces like the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden will be available around the world, he said.

“We believe this is a balanced and complete package,” Panetta told a news conference, with Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at his side.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/panetta-announces-plan-for-defense-cuts-that-would-shrink-ground-forces-retire-some-planes/2012/01/26/gIQAITqTTQ_story.html

[TheWraith]

1. $500 billion, according to CNN. nt

[AllyCat]

2. Hope it's worthless weapons, not all staff.

[TheWraith]

3. There's not nearly as many "worthless weapons" as people think there are.

Procurement is only a small portion of the overall Pentagon budget.

[Kolesar]

28. Barney Frank recommended idling the worthless nuclear saturation bomber fleet

that was designed to kill our enemy from 22 years ago.

[kemah]

4. During the Viet Nam war it was found that it was cheaper to give the VC 4 years of college and

Cheaper to give them 4 years of college and buy them a house then it was to kill them.
Another unnecessary war. I was in the service during that time never went to Viet Nam but talked to soldiers that did and it was really a war like no other. As a soldier your personal mission was to survive 6 months, get your 1 month R&R, then survive 6 more months and get home. In WWII your personal mission was to win the war. You were not going home till the war was over. This mindset affected your motivation and the way you handle yourself in the a mission. Don't take any unnecessary heroics.

[Adsos Letter]

30. My sense is that your observation is more applicable to later in the war.

I recall there being more of a sense of personal mission earlier in the war (stop the Reds, etc.). As I recall the times (I was also in the Army at the time, but stationed in Germany) it was primarily as the war dragged on, with increasing casualties and decreasing hopes of a successful outcome, that it became increasingly a matter of simply getting through it unscathed.

The whole motivation and unnecessary heroics mindset really came to the fore as the war dragged on toward the 1970's, iirc.

Perhaps it's just my memory playing tricks on me; wouldn't be the first time.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Start billing Big Oil for the security services rendered.

Without the taxpayers providing protection for getting Big Oil's product from the ME to the US refineries/world market, they'd have to cost this appropriately...in the price of a gallon of gas/oil. Then maybe we could start to change our dependency on fossil fuel as our primary energy source when the consumer is paying the real price...instead of indirectly as a taxpayer paying for the cost via the Defense budget.

[aggiesal]

6. Get rid of all the

privatized armies like Blackwater, Halliburton & Bechtel.

That should be worth at least $500 billion.

[Johnson20]

21. On the contray.

This will probably increase their numbers substantially and it can be done outside of the DOD budget. If you read between the lines of Panetta's statement it will more than likely happen.

"More special operations forces like the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden will be available around the world, he said. "

[aggiesal]

45. Are you saying ...

That having more privatized armies will reduce costs?
Am I reading this correctly?

[Lasher]

7. I'm skeptical.

He's already said he won't give up even one single supercarrier. My guess is, he'll announce plans for cuts to be made sometime in the future when somebody else is Secretary of Defense. That's the type of cuts that never seem to actually materialize.

FY2012 will end in September. When all is said and done I'll be watching to see if defense spending was actually less this year than it was last year.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

8. Or perhaps a decrease in a future scheduled increase ...

... which many claim is a cut (even if they are still getting an increase, just not as much as originally planned).

[SlimJimmy]

9. I just can't get my approval around the term *cut* for this. A cut *should*

be a decrease in the actual budget, not a decrease in the proposed increase.

[Lasher]

14. I see you are picking up what I'm laying down.

It's a shell game to con the reluctant masses.

I would love to be wrong about this. I hope Panetta announces actual military spending cuts for this fiscal year. I hope they are significant and I hope they actually occur.

But like I said, I'm skeptical.

[Kolesar]

27. ...totals are about $33 billion less than the Pentagon is spending this year...

That WAPO article:

the administration will request a 2013 budget of $525 billion, plus another $88 billion for operations in Afghanistan. Combined, those totals are about $33 billion less than the Pentagon is spending this year.

[Lasher]

29. $487 billion in cuts over 10 years.

As I expected, it's not exactly a draconian cut and it's spread out over a decade.

[Skinner]

10. Here's a link

Panetta announces plan for defense cuts that would shrink ground forces, retire some planes

WASHINGTON — Pentagon leaders outlined a plan Thursday for absorbing $487 billion in defense cuts over the coming decade by shrinking U.S. ground forces, slowing the purchase of a next-generation stealth fighter and retiring older planes and ships.

In a bid to pre-empt election-year Republican criticism, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the plan shifts the Pentagon’s focus from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to future challenges in Asia, the Mideast and in cyberspace. More special operations forces like the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden will be available around the world, he said.

“We believe this is a balanced and complete package,” Panetta told a news conference, with Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at his side.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/panetta-announces-plan-for-defense-cuts-that-would-shrink-ground-forces-retire-some-planes/2012/01/26/gIQAITqTTQ_story.html

[onehandle]

11. Thanks. I was just looking for a good link. You guys handled the editing function on DU3 perfectly.

Editing, with history was a great idea.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

12. Obama just made a pretty speech. He didn't mean ANYTHING he said

Just election year tactics!!!

[HopeHoops]

13. I think the WW-I era biplanes can probably use a rest.

[Robb]

15. Only if you want the Kaiser back in power!

...Excuse me, I need to take this call.

Hello?

[atreides1]

16. This'll go over well

100,000 troops kicked to the curb with little or no job prospects, along with their families...

[Lasher]

17. A legitimate concern.

Among the details Panetta disclosed:

The Army would shrink by 80,000 soldiers, from 570,000 today to 490,000 by 2017. That is slightly larger than the Army on 9/11.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-01-26/panetta-military-defense-cuts/52805056/1

That's a reduction of 16,000 each year for the next 5 years, a 14% annual decrease. This could probably be achieved by attrition alone. And we cannot be certain that all these reductions would actually occur. Who knows, we could stir something up in the South China Sea in a couple of years, generating an urgent need to forget about these projected reductions.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. 14% over 5 years, not "14% annual"

2.8% annual, if you lose the same amount each year.

[Lasher]

24. Thank you for correcting my colossal blunder.

Duh.

[MADem]

26. You can do a lot of that with "prompt retirement."

It will mean that a lot of people who might want to stay on and promote have to retire at a lower rank, but they'll get a full benefits package. It's also possible to cut people loose at the lower ends, forgiving enlistment contracts and offering "early out" opportunities at PCS points (cheaper to let them go early than move them with a forced extension on their contract).

And then, there's force shaping--up or out strategies, through performance standards (more challenging testing for promotion, rigidly enforced phsyical fitness/height-weight standards, increased drug testing and a resumption of true zero tolerance policies )--all of those techniques can take a big bite. There's also medical boards--they can be guided to interpret "readiness" more harshly. If not enough, after all that, it's time to go to another TERA (Temporary Early Retirement Authority). Congress has to make that happen, though.

IIRC, during the last big bloodbath, we started slow, took a big bite in the middle (much gnashing of teeth) and ended with a whimper. It wasn't fun. I hope this one is a bit smoother and is accomplished with less pain.

[Lasher]

35. Or we could simply deactivate the 87,52 reserve component soldiers currently on active duty?

Most of them have been activated involuntarily.

http://www.defense.gov/news/d20111227ngr.pdf

That alone would more than satisfy Panetta's 5 year reduction goal of 80,000.

And what about attrition? According to Bill Gates, up to 80% of our soldiers separate from active duty before serving a minimum of 20 years.

http://www.armytimes.com/money/retirement/offduty-retired-military-associations-prepare-for-changes-080111w/

Couldn't we slow down our recruiting just a little?

I don't see how you can consider this a bloodbath. These are token reductions.

[MADem]

38. Here's how I consider it a bloodbath. When you sit across the desk from a young Sailor or Marine

with a spouse and kids, and have to tell him or her that his or her ass is out the door, it's a bloodbath. There's nothing token about firing even three percent of your workforce if they don't want to go--and many don't. They want a career, not a kiss on the cheek and a kick in the ass. Their disappointment can be gut-wrenching and adversely impact morale across units.

I have no role in managing this present effort, I'm happily out of it, so I don't know if your reserve numbers are integrated into the total end strength or if the ebb and flow of activated/de-activated reserve assets are factored separately from A/D ES. In any event, you have to continue to train your reserve assets, otherwise they are worthless. The whole paradigm of reserve forces is so very different in this century than it has been in past conflicts--reservists are much better prepared and supported than they were in times past.

You can't slow down recruiting entirely but you can slow it down to some extent if you are presently in high optempo mode for accessions. If you've already cut your accession numbers, you can't shut the tap off entirely. You always need to keep the pipeline moving, with assets going in and exiting, in order to keep the promotion flow going. The minute you have stagnation issues with promotions, you have serious morale problems and it makes it difficult to manage other personnel decisions, like training and PCS moves.

[fasttense]

40. Pay raises are on track until 2015.

"Military pay raises will remain on track until 2015, when the pace of increase will be slowed by an undetermined amount."

[Lasher]

41. I don't know what the COLAs are but they probably shouldn't be reduced.

The enlisted men and women in particular probably need them badly.

[MADem]

18. That IS a downside of peace. Remember the "Clinton drawdown?"

Force shaping always happens at the end of a war. It happened after Vietnam, it happened after Korea, it happened after the World Wars. It happened in a huge way after the Civil War.

It's not fun, even if you're on the policy-making end, and not the receiving end. No one wants to do it, but the only alternative is War Without End, Amen.

[Lasher]

23. It is inaccurate to describe that as the "Clinton drawdown."

Measured in what economists call "constant dollars," adjusted for inflation, defense spending declined by nearly 15 percent between Reagan's last budget (for fiscal year 1989) and George H. W. Bush's last budget four years later. The decline was just under 13 percent between Bush's last budget and Clinton's final fiscal year (2001). In other words, the buying power of the dollars spent for defense declined more during Bush 41's four years than during Clinton's eight.

Bush 41’s secretary of defense explained that “overall, since I've been secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend.… And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend.” That defense secretary, of course, was Dick Cheney.



http://www.factcheck.org/more_mitt_missteps.html

But these facts are often lost in the haze of neoconservative lies, accusing Clinton of uniquely reducing military expenditures while presuming without qualification that such frugality is inherently evil.

[MADem]

25. Well, that's why I called it the "Clinton Drawdown" and not The Clinton Drawdown.

I remember it, because I inputted to it--to the Secretary of Defense, a guy named Cheney.

I also remember it, because I had to assist in implementing it, under Secretary of Defense Cohen.

We implemented rigorous force-shaping procedures that were draconian in many regards. I've talked about them on this board in the past.

Probably would have been easier to ask me what I meant, eh?

[Lasher]

34. I beg your pardon.

I was not able to discern the significance you intended for your scare quotes. And it therefore did not occur to me that I should seek clarification before elaborating about the "Clinton Drawdown." After all, as I pointed out before (and as you appear to have been aware), misconceptions about it are widespread.

[MADem]

37. No problem. I always called it the Cheney drawdown, myself, and got googly-eyes from people

who didn't get that we were working those numbers before the Berlin Wall even fell.

In fact, one of the best drawdown briefings I ever heard was from a Congressman from California back in the middle eighties (he was a fellah named Panetta). Talk about some seriously astute long-range thinking!

[Lasher]

39. I've shot down a boatload of chain emails on this very subject.

One of my favorite was the one that showed the USS Saint Ronnie, then a garbage barge named the Clinton. Long story short, after citing the period of time when this super carrier was built and launched, I finished up by noting that it was Clinton who built the USS Reagan.

Now I believe all those easy victims have retreated to Facebook. I don't get much of their email trash anymore.

Thanks for the interesting stories.

[MADem]

47. +1!!! nt

[Johnson20]

44. And probably that many or more civilians

with the proposed base closings.

[4dsc]

19. Its a start.

[Johnson20]

20. Gonna be lots of folks

out of a job, particularly after a round or two of base closings. Lots and lots of civilians (voters) work at those bases.

[Lasher]

36. That's a bad part of the plan.

They propose closure of bases on US soil while increasing the number of soldiers stationed abroad in places like Kuwait, Australia, and the Philippines.

[dmallind]

42. Corey Aquino kicked out all US bases in the Philippines. There are none.

[Lasher]

48. That's why I said, "...while increasing the number of soldiers stationed abroad..."

We currently have about 600 US soldiers stationed in the Philippines. Perhaps you've noticed the several recent news accounts that describe plans to increase our military presence in the area. They are being careful to say their will be no new US bases.

Specifically where the Philippines is concerned they are saying they are "only looking at increasing the frequency of joint military exercises with Filipino troops in the Philippines." That means more US solders will be going there more often and staying longer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/us-philippines-discuss-intensifying-joint-war-exercises-but-no-basing-of-american-troops/2012/01/26/gIQA8gYKSQ_story.html

[provis99]

31. what a goddamn lie. they aren't shrinking the budget at all!

Instead, they projected a high increase in spending to 2017, then decided to lower the rate of increase in spending, and then claim they are saving 500 billion dollars from the difference, when actual defense spending is projected to go from 525 to 567 billion.

Fuck you, Panetta you liar.

[Amonester]

32. Plus, it gives whoever will be Obama's opponent the....

too predictable (but, of course, false) 'weak' meme to 'Citizens United' (i.g., a few .000001 peRcenteR$) him

[SpartanDem]

43. They aren't cutting the budget?

If they're projecting on spending $257 billion LESS than originally planned that sounds like a budget cut to me.

[provis99]

46. they are slowing the rate of increase not shrinking the budget.

As I have already noted, the size of the defense budget is going up.

[on point]

33. Good start. Now mulitply by 10. That is your target to cut - 5 trillion over 10 yrs.

Discuss. Create an alternative budget to the conventional wisdom.


'You wage empire with the budget you have, not the budgt you want'

to paraphrase Rumsfeld.

Stand down as world policeman. Support the UN and the rule of law instead.