Panetta Lays Out Five-Year Defense Budget Cut Details

By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor

ARLINGTON, Va. – Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta put forth his budget priorities and offered some detail of the spending cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 in advance of the Feb. 13 roll-out of the fiscal 2013 budget request.

In a briefing to reporters Jan. 26 at the Pentagon, Panetta described some of the program terminations, reductions and delays that are designed to meet the target of $259 billion in defense spending reductions required in the next five years, the first installment of the $487 billion in reductions required over the next decade.

The force level of 11 aircraft carriers and 10 carrier air wings will be sustained, Panetta said, noting that the Navy must “retain the most flexible, versatile and technologically advanced platforms needed for the future.”

No cuts will be made in the current level of nine large-deck amphibious assault ships. However, the start of an America-class amphibious assault ship would be delayed one year. Two dock landing ships would be retired early and their planned replacement design, LSD(X), delayed to beyond the five-year Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP).  

According to the Defense Budget Priorities and Choices January 2012 document that was released at Panetta’s briefing, the next-generation ballistic-missile submarine, the Ohio Replacement SSBN, will be delayed two years “without undermining our partnership with the [United Kingdom]. While this delay will create challenges in maintaining current at-sea presence requirements in the 2030s, we believed the risk can be managed.”

In other delays, the procurement of one Virginia-class attack submarine, two Littoral Combat Ships and eight Joint High-Speed Vessels originally planned will slide to beyond the five-year FYDP.

Recognizing the importance of maintaining critical maritime access in vital regions of the world, Panetta said the Navy “will invest in a design that will allow new Virginia-class submarines to be modified to carry more cruise missiles, and develop an undersea conventional prompt-strike option.”

Seven Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers — six of which lack a ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability — will be retired early. The seventh possesses BMD capability but is in need of costly hull repairs. The retirements will leave the Navy with 15 cruisers.

A yet unspecified number of combat logistics and fleet support ships would be cut under the proposal.

Panetta said the Defense Department would protect the ongoing procurement of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer and its participation in the Phased Adaptive Approach to BMD for Europe.

Special operations forces and sea-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, such as those of the Fire Scout unmanned aerial system (UAS), would be protected from cuts.

Although the Air Force’s Block 30 version of the Global Hawk UAS will be terminated, the cancellation would enable the Defense Department to sustain other Global Hawk programs, such as the Navy’s MQ-4C Broad-Area Maritime Surveillance system.

All three versions of the F-35 Lightning II would be continued, but procurement “would be slowed to complete more testing and make developmental changes to minimize concurrency issues before buying in significant quantities,” Panetta said.

The active-duty Marine Corps would be reduced from 202,000 Marines to 182,000, a somewhat smaller force than the 186,800 recommended by the Marine Corps’ force structure review conducted last year. Marine Reserve forces would be protected from cuts. Panetta said the Corps would be a “middleweight expeditionary force with reinvigorated amphibious capabilities.”

The Defense Department will fund a new afloat forward base that can support missions where “ground-based access is not available,” he said. The budget also will support basing Littoral Combat Ships in Singapore and patrol craft in Bahrain.

Panetta said President Barack Obama will request that Congress authorize a new round of the Base Realignment and Closure process to identify further cuts.