Daniel Dombey and James Politi in Washington
Financial Times, 14 April 2011
The Pentagon has warned Barack Obama his planned defence cuts could force the US military to rein in its role across the world, underlining the high-stakes fight over the US president's fiscal plans.
As Republicans attacked Mr Obama for his new goal of cutting $400bn in defence spending over the next 12 years, the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, made clear it was uneasy about the risks involved.
"The secretary has been clear that further significant defence cuts cannot be accomplished without reducing force structure and military capability," said Mr Gates's spokesman, signalling the concern of a senior member of Mr Obama's administration.
Until now, the president has often deferred to Mr Gates, who is due to retire this year, avoiding any sharp break with the Bush administration on national security strategy, traditionally an electoral weak spot for the Democrats.
But it was not until Tuesday, a day before Mr Obama's announcement, that Mr Gates learned in full about the planned cuts. The defence secretary has long campaigned against cutting overall defence spending, despite pushing through extensive plans to save billions of dollars and axing specific high-profile programmes.
Mr Obama's new plans, unveiled on Wednesday, are the first time the president has proposed such overall cuts. Previously during his administration, the US has reduced the expected rate of growth in the Pentagon budget. This time, however, it plans to increase security spending by less than the rate of inflation, even before taking into account savings from winding down the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mr Gates's spokesman said the defence secretary agreed with Mr Obama that a comprehensive review had to take place before any specific cuts were made. "The secretary believes that this process must be about managing risk associated with future threats and national security challenges and identifying missions that the country is willing to have the military forgo," he said. "It is important that any reduction in funding be shaped by strategy and policy choices and not be a budget math exercise."
Under the last round of savings, which Mr Gates agreed to in January, the Pentagon's base budget of more than $550bn would be held constant in real terms in 2015 and 2016 after increases in previous years.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, has argued that spending will have to go back up in subsequent years or US forces will have to be cut beyond planned reductions in the size of the army and the marines.
A US official emphasised that the additional cuts now called for by Mr Obama would only take place after consultation with the defence secretary and the joint chiefs of staff, noting that some savings could come from outside the Pentagon.
By contrast, the Republican budget plan announced last week simply endorsed some of the earlier savings identified by the Pentagon for deficit reduction.
"I have grave concerns about the White House announcing a $400bn cut to national security spending while our troops are fighting in three different theatres," said Howard McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, highlighting how difficult it could be to come to an ag-reement by the end of June deadline set by Mr Obama.
Citation: Daniel Dombey and James Politi, "Defence chief warns against planned cuts," Financial Times,14 April 2011. Original URL: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c252072c-6624-11e0-9d40-00144feab49a.html#axzz1JTOauOu1