Panel makes suggestions to cut defense spending - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Panel makes suggestions to cut defense spending

How about retiring 57 ships from the Navy? And cutting 200,000 troops from the military? And ending costly programs like the V-22 Osprey, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, even the new refueling tanker?

How about curtailing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter?

Those are just a few of the recommendations offered by a task force that was asked by several members of Congress to come up with ways to cut defense spending — without diminishing national security.

The Sustainable Defense Task Force unveiled its plan to cut $1.1 trillion in military spending over the next decade. Defense spending, which will reach $567 billion in 2011, is expected to top $7.4 trillion during the decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That does not include spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will boost 2011 defense spending to $726 billion.

Defense spending cuts will be essential as the United States struggles to bring its $13 trillion debt and $1.4 trillion annual deficit under control, members of the task force said Friday.

But reducing the Navy to 230 ships — 100 fewer than it wants — or reversing recent increases in ground troops, or eliminating air wings would represent a major — and many would say unlikely about-face for the military.

The task force, which includes representatives from a dozen think tanks and government watchdog organizations, was organized by liberal Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and other members of Congress — a handful in all.

“We’re not talking about undercutting the troops in the field” or reducing the United States’ ability to fight terrorism, Frank said. “No one favors cutting back on national security.”

But national security requires a healthy economy, he said, and the economy is in trouble, in part because of excessive military spending.

Frank, who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, called for cutting by one-third the number of troops in Europe and Asia. That would reduce the number stationed in those regions to 35,000 in Europe and 65,000 in Asia and save $80 billion over 10 years.

“I do not know what we are protecting Europe from — or why they can’t defend themselves,” Frank said.

The task force recommends reducing the nuclear triad to a land-based and submarine-based nuclear dyad with 1,000 nuclear weapons. The newly signed START treaty would reduce the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to 1,550 weapons each.

The U.S. should also cut spending on missile defense — now a $10 billion annual expense — to about $3.3 billion until development work is done and missile interceptors are proven to work, the task force said.

Eliminating five Army brigade combat teams and four Marine Corps infantry battalions — about 30,000 troops in all — would save $147 billion over the decade, the task force calculates.

Troop pullouts

Those cuts would be possible as troops pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and there is a growing consensus that the United States is unlikely to get involved in another large, drawn-out ground war in the foreseeable future, said Carl Conetta, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives and a member of the task force.

Other proposals include retiring two aircraft carriers and their air wings and retiring two Air Force fighter wings. Because UAVs are doing such a good job in Afghanistan and Pakistan, fewer manned fighters are needed, said Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official and now senior defense analyst at the Center for American Progress.

During nine years of war, defense spending has doubled. But recently, as the economy has faltered, there appears to be growing acceptance that defense cuts are necessary, Frank said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has instructed the services to find $100 billion in savings over the next five years, but that would not reduce overall defense spending. Instead, money trimmed from low-priority programs would be shifted to higher-priority modernization.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., a long-time champion of defense spending and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday he plans to ask a committee panel to recommend defense spending cuts.

But to achieve cuts as deep as those called for by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, there will have to be “a philosophical change” and perhaps a new definition of national security that includes a sound economy, Frank conceded.