Gates Budget Plan Reshapes Pentagon's Priorities

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Defense Secretary Proposes Sweeping Defense Budget Changes - Greg Jaffe and Shailagh Murray, Washington Post

Defense Secretary Robert Gates outlined sweeping changes to the defense budget Monday that would shift hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon spending away from elaborate weapons toward programs more likely to benefit troops in today's wars.

The proposal by Gates amounts to a radical change in the way the Pentagon buys weapons. For decades, the US has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons programs striving for revolutionary leaps, but often were delivered years late and billions of dollars over budget. In proposing his 2010 budget, which will likely face stiff resistance from Congress, Gates emphasized that he wanted to change the "priorities of America's defense establishment."

The effort to pare back weapons programs that Gates derided as "truly in the exquisite category" reflects a growing recognition in the Pentagon that the days of soaring defense budgets are over. And it highlights Gates' long-stated desire to increase spending on surveillance systems and other relatively low-tech weapons that are best suited for guerrilla or irregular war, which has traditionally been an industry backwater. "I'm just trying to get the irregular guys to have a seat at the table and to institutionalize some of the needs they have," he said.

More at The Washington Post.

Gates Budget Plan Reshapes Pentagon's Priorities - Elisabeth Bumiller and Christopher Drew, New York Times

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Monday announced a broad reshaping of the Pentagon budget, with deep cuts in many traditional weapons systems but billions of dollars for new technology to fight the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The decisions represent the first sweeping overhaul of American military strategy under the Obama administration, which wants to spend more money on counterterrorism and less on preparations for conventional warfare against large nations like China and Russia.

Mr. Gates announced cuts in missile defense programs, in the Army's expensive Future Combat Systems and in Navy shipbuilding operations.

But he proposed, as he has before, spending an extra $11 billion to finish enlarging the Army and the Marine Corps and to halt reductions in the Air Force and the Navy. He also announced an extra $2 billion for intelligence and surveillance equipment, including more spending on special forcers units and 50 new Predator and Reaper drones, the unmanned vehicles that are currently used in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq for strikes against militants.

More at The New York Times.

Pentagon Pushes Weapon Cuts - Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday unveiled a sweeping overhaul of weapons priorities to reorient the US military toward winning such unconventional conflicts as the war in Afghanistan rather than fighting China, Russia or other major powers.

With thousands of jobs at stake, political battles over the proposal are likely to be intense. The defense secretary is seeking a wide range of cuts, affecting pet programs at almost every major US contractor, as well as several high-profile contracts with European companies.

Mr. Gates's proposed baseline 2010 Defense Department budget of $534 billion is up 4% from last year. But it signals a major departure from business as usual at the Pentagon, with a heavy emphasis on overhauling a procurement process that he and congressional leaders have decried as being too heavily influenced by powerful contractors.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Gates Proposal Reveals His Alienation From Procurement System - R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post

After reading a newspaper article's report that a particular armored vehicle had dramatically cut fatality rates in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other senior defense officials traveled 80 miles northeast to Aberdeen Proving Ground in spring 2007 to see for themselves how the V-shaped hull of the costly Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle deflected the worst blast effects of buried explosives.

Within weeks, and after some pointed demands for the MRAPs from Capitol Hill, Gates decided to make accelerated production of the vehicles his top priority, using a special task force that circumvented the department's normal purchasing methods -- and the initial opposition of the Army and the Marine Corps. The results were not perfect -- an inspector general's report said later that in its rush, the department overspent by tens of millions of dollars -- but they were effective: Thousands of additional MRAPs flooded into Iraq and fatality rates dropped precipitously.

Aides say that the experience was like a baptism for Gates into the wei...of the Pentagon's weapons-procurement system, which experts have long assailed for buying the wrong arms and paying far too much.

More at The Washington Post.

Gates Axes Some Costly Weapons, Emphasizes 'Irregular' Warfare - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor

In a dramatic departure from tradition, Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled a Pentagon budget Monday that aims to help the US fight a hybrid form of warfare -- one in which an insurgent with an AK-47 rifle is backed by a sophisticated ballistic missile.

Defense spending traditionally reflects conventional threats, posed by countries such as China or perhaps Iran. But Secretary Gates's $534 billion budget recommends billions of dollars for the counterinsurgency needs of unconventional conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan, while making broad and controversial cuts to weapons programs such as the F-22 stealth fighter that Gates sees as part of an outdated, cold-war mind-set.

"I'm not trying to have irregular capabilities take the place of conventional capabilities," Gates said Monday. "I just want the irregular guys to have a seat at the table."

This "reform budget," he said, is an opportunity "to critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements -- those things that are desirable in a perfect world from those things that are truly needed in light of the threats America faces and the missions we are likely to undertake in the years ahead."

More at The Christian Science Monitor and:

Department of Defense Budget Press Briefing - Transcript

Gates Proposes Major Changes - Wall Street Journal

Gates Unveils Broad Changes - Los Angeles Times

Gates Lays Out Budget Recommendations - AFPS

Defense Chief Proposes Weapons Cuts - Washington Times

Pentagon Budget Kills F-22, Pumps Up Special Ops - CS Monitor

Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out - Washington Post

Defense Budget 'Overhaul' Meets Resistance - Washington Times

Defense Chief Proposes Weapons Cuts - Associated Press

Secretary Gates' US Defense Recommendations - Reuters

Pentagon Unveils Large Cuts to Defence Budget - The Times