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Pentagon budget: top 3 winners and losers

In Pentagon parlance, the word “cut” is a relative term. The Defense Department’s base budget decreases from $553 billion this year to $525 billion in 2013, but it rebounds steadily to $567 billion in 2017. With this in mind, here are the top three winners and losers:

Loser No. 1: the Army

Allauddin Khan/AP/File
A US soldier kneels on the ground as he controls the area during a foot patrol in Kandahar, Afghanistan, earlier this month.

  • By Anna Mulrine Staff writer

The Pentagon will be reducing the size of the active duty Army by some 80,000 troops over the next several years, from approximately 570,000 today to 490,000.

Even then, the force will still be slightly larger than it was before the 9/11 attacks, military officials point out.

It is easier to grow the ranks of foot soldiers than it is to create a new weapon system, senior US military officials tend to point out. And, these officials add, they feel more comfortable cutting the size of the service when troops have been “fundamentally reshaped by a decade of war,” as Panetta puts it.

This means that the troops who remain are “far more lethal, battle-hardened, and ready,” he added in remarks to reporters.

General Dempsey, for his part, endeavored to put a positive spin on the decreasing size of the Army, and the growing emphasis on Special Operations. “The Special Operations Forces can only be ‘special’ if there’s a conventional force that allows them to conduct their operations and shape the environment, so we’ve got to do this all in balance, and I’m confident we’ve done that.”

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Mark Sappenfield
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