By Richard Sisk
The War Report

It’s the “less is more” defense spending plan.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta outlined his budget forecast for a smaller, more cost-conscious and land-war averse military — and the hand of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates was all over the fine print.

Last February, Gates stunned an auditorium packed with West Point cadets by stating that “in my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as Gen. (Douglas) MacArthur so delicately put it.”

Panetta’s budget proposal reflected Gates’ blunt advice.

His plan — subject to major revisions by Congress — would shrink the Army by 80,000 troops while beefing up Special Forces and the drone fleet, keep the number of aircraft carriers at 11, pull back on forces in Europe and lay the groundwork for closing more bases in the United States.

And the Air Force down the line gets a new long-range bomber, which may or may not be unmanned.

At a Pentagon briefing with Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs chairman, Panetta said the budget was the product of the new strategy guidance for the military from President Barack Obama earlier this month. The guidance called for de-emphasizing nation building and the counter-insurgency tactics used in Iraq and Afghanistan that requires major land forces.

The military will now rely more on Special Forces to counter threats while taking on more responsibilities, especially in the Pacific, with a streamlined force that will be more agile and flexible, Panetta said.

But there will be risks, he said, and “the risks come with the fact that we will have a smaller force.”

Dempsey acknowledged that risk but said the drawdown will still leave the nation with “a force that’s prepared to secure global access and respond to global contingencies.”

“It’s a military that can win any conflict anywhere,” he said.

In a future major ground war, the military would be more reliant than ever on the National Guard and Reserves to build the necessary force quickly, Panetta and Dempsey said.

The current defense budget of $671 billion, including a base budget of $553 billion and an additional $118 billion in costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would go down to about $525 billion for the base budget in fiscal 2013. Another $85 billion would be allocated for Afghanistan and “other contingency operations.”

Panetta’s submission was the opening salvo in the struggle to cut $487 bllion from defense over 10 years under a deal worked out by President Obama and Congress. If Congress fails to agree on other reductions in federal spending this year, the hit to the defense budget could double under automatic cuts that would take effect in January 2013.

The plan called for the Army to be cut from about 570,000 troops to 490,00 in the next five years, and the Marine Corps would become what Panetta called a “middleweight” force of 182,000, a cut of 20,000.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, had been warning for months against major cuts in troop strength, but he was now on board with the plan.

“We’re now out of Iraq, we’re reducing our commitment in Afghanistan, so we can now bring the size of the Army down. And I feel comfortable with how we’re going to do that,” Odierno told Reuters.

Critics quickly began lining up to trash the plan, suggesting a difficult path ahead for the budget proposals in Congress.

“These cuts reflect President Obama’s vision of an America that is weakened, not strengthened, by our men and women in uniform,” said Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon ( R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Thomas Donnelly, a military analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the budget reflected a “leading from behind” mentality that the Obama administration used in Libya, and warned that the U.S. would now be in “permanent retreat” from its global responsibilities.

“This is going to be tough,” Panetta said, particulary the proposal to set up a new Base Realignment and Closing Commission to recommend base closings that will be fiercely opposed by members of Congress whose districts are hit.

“Now, it’s going to impact on members, it’s going to impact on districts, it’s going to impact on constituents. I understand that,” Panetta said. “When I was in the Congress, I went through this process, and I understand what it means. But it’s also an opportunity for members to show the kind of leadership that the country expects of them when it comes to dealing with this challenge.”

Panetta could also expect major pushback from veterans’ groups on the proposals to revamp the military retirement system and to bump fees for co-pays and deductibles on the military’s TriCare health system.

“We have cause for concern,” said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “We have concerns about putting the budget cuts on the backs of our military retirees.”

That thought was echoed by Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “As these wars end, our military is at a strategic turning point, but we cannot balance the budget on the backs of our nation’s warriors and their families,” he said.

[Photo: DOD Photo]