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As expected Thursday, Robert Gates announced a series of cuts to the Pentagon budget. The numbers, $78 billion over the next 5 years, came in a little lower than the $100 billion expected. A separate $100 billion in cuts would be reinvested in “new weapon systems and programs that benefit troops.” Gates has made no secret of the fact that he wants to free up money in more outdated weapons systems, like the Marine landing craft program, to put to use in modern war-fighting.
And that shift is happening almost immediately. For on the very same day that Gates announced these cuts, he also announced the sending of 1,400 additional Marines to Afghanistan to help with what is expected to be a difficult spring campaign.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to send an additional 1,400 Marine combat forces to Afghanistan, officials said, in a surprise move ahead of the spring fighting season to try to cement tentative security gains before White House-mandated troop reductions begin in July.
The Marine battalion could start arriving on the ground as early as mid-January. The forces would mostly be deployed in the south, around Kandahar, where the U.S. has concentrated troops over the past several months.
Commanders in Afghanistan and advocates of the strategy in Washington say temporarily adding front-line forces could help counter an anticipated spring offensive by Taliban militants returning from havens in neighboring Pakistan.
Commanders are examining other proposals to temporarily boost the number of combat troops in Afghanistan in addition to the Marines authorized Wednesday. If the plans are approved, the front-line fighting force could be increased in total by as many as 3,000 troops.
With a year-long tour, at the customary cost for this war of one million dollars per troop per year, the cost of an additional 3,000 deployments could raise spending in Afghanistan by $3 billion dollars, assuming a year-long tour of duty. Yes, there will be a drawdown, supposedly, by July, but goosing the troop numbers now means you’re drawing down from a higher figure. So I think it’s accurate to say $3 billion, just in troop spending.
So subtract the “cuts” by $3 billion. And in fiscal year 2012, the Pentagon will only offer a $13 billion dollar reduction from their initial budget estimate. So fully 1/4 of it gets offset by troop escalation.
Oh, and how will these cost savings be reached? $7 billion comes from increasing health care premiums for military families.
Supposedly, the topline “reductions,” including a decrease in the size of the military force, won’t hit until after the war in Afghanistan “ends” in 2015. Somehow, I see more stealth deployments of 3,000 troops or more until that time.
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Plus a large chunk of the $78 billion is going to get reinstated by Congress.
Obama did say in announcing the surge that he might add another 3,000 to the 30,000 troops initially authorized. I don’t think he could keep adding to that without a public backlash. But I do agree that the drawdown in July is likely to be on the order of one batallion so the increase pretty much cancels that out.
Why should Congress reinstate any of the $78B? Obama should veto any attempt to do that.
I don’t know if this is a big improvement, but every effort to reduce “defense” spending to more sensible levels is welcome.
We should also appreciate that Gates has pushed for the repeal of DADT and implementation of that repeal. He’s serving us well.
How do you cut defense spending when you have active global “terra” wars ongoing? Not only does it sound stupid, but is also completely fabricated.
“Sarge, we’d like to shoot off a few more missiles at them there brown sand people, but we’ve used up our budget for the year.”
“Don’t worry private. We has lots of bombs, the budget cuts only cut back on paper and staples.”
What is $78B cuts over 5 years in a total military budget of more than a trillion a year…just for show while they cut social programs.
Sport the trewps, sport the trewps, sport the trewps.
I’m shocked, shocked that the cuts are coming out of benefits for the troops. Oh wait, no I’m not. I predicted that it would be health care they cut when posting here when someone said that the Defense department would be open to cuts.
God forbid we not have bright shiny new ways to reign terror down upon whoever the enemy of the week is(Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, etc, etc)
Speak for yourself. I’m opposed to diminishing the benefits of those who are risking their lives in the name of the US government.
Well, everything I wanted to say has already been typed in the comments, so….
I don’t even think the war is “counted” in our deficit. It’s off the books. So the private has no worries because if it’s officially for the war, it doesn’t “really” count.
“A separate $100 billion in cuts would be reinvested in “new weapon systems and programs that benefit troops.”
This is a budget cut? It sounds more like what we used to call in the Army a “lateral transfer” and is in keeping with how the Pentagon makes “cuts”: It takes funds from one place and puts it somewhere else; or, it asks for more money than it will get and calls the resulting shortfall a “budget cut.” Smoke and mirrors.
They are so concerned with policies to “benefit troops” that they are going to charge them more for insurance?
“Somehow, I see more stealth deployments of 3,000 troops or more until that time.”
Bet on it. The US will leave when the locals kick it out, when it goes broke pursuing its military adventures, or when the cost of “security” outweighs the profits and other benefits of murdering and robbing folks in the Middle East, and not before.
Sounds stupid for sure.
The MIC: Too big to fail™
I, and most other Americans, thought at the end of the Nam War, well, we’ll never do that again. So, here we are, doing it again. Isn’t there some deep pathology operating in people who keep doing the same thing over and over again when the evidence has it that it doesn’t work and isn’t working?
What can be said about a nation that wages war against an unknown enemy and an abstract noun? (At least in Nam the enemy was known and their threatened invasion and take over of south Nam was not an abstraction – like terrorism.) We’ve really gone over the cliff.
A) Congress won’t let HC costs rise for vets
B) Gates didn’t mean active duty or retired seniors
C) The idea still sucks, but he knows it’s a bogus item (as most of the rest are)
From NYT:
But some — especially increases in fees for the military’s health-care system, called Tricare — require Congressional approval, and have been rejected before.
Proposals to increase Tricare fees will pit Mr. Gates against those in Congress — and veterans’ groups — who say retired military personnel already have paid up front with service in uniform. Ten years ago, health care cost the Pentagon $19 billion; today, it tops $50 billion; five years from now it is projected to cost $65 billion.
But Tricare fees have not increased since 1995.
Mr. Gates was expected to press for increasing the cost of health insurance premiums and spot fees only for working-age retirees and their families, not for those on active duty or those 65 and older, to save $7 billion over five years.
Possibly American Exceptionalism is a big part of the pathology. It certainly seems to keep us from seeing others and our actions honestly. It’s the arch-enemy of empathy, and empathy is an essential ingredient of learning.