US military budget: cuts too slow

13
The Pentagon continues to implement the plans of the presidential administration to reduce military spending. Due to the unfavorable financial situation, the US leadership is forced to reduce budget expenditures, which affects, among other things, the amount of funding of the military. Over the next ten years, the United States intends to reduce the budget deficit by about 1,8 trillion dollars. However, only a third of this amount will be compensated by an increase in revenue, the remaining 60-65% will be replenished by optimizing costs.



The other day, US Secretary of Defense Charles Hagel announced the approximate plans of his department, according to which in the coming years we will be able to achieve significant savings. Over the next five years, the complex of measures taken will save about 34-35 billions of dollars, and in the next five-year period bring the total amount of savings to 150 billions. At the same time, as Hagel notes, the implementation of these plans is possible only if the Pentagon, the Congress and the presidential administration overcome the current impasse in the negotiations and can stop the recently begun sequestration of the military budget. During the sequestration, the military department until the end of the current fiscal year (until September 30) should be forced to save a billion dollars in 41. When such conditions are met, there is a risk of losing some of the defense potential, so Pentagon analysts are busy creating new plans to cut costs without appreciable damage to defense capability.

According to the draft defense budget announced the other day, the United States military will spend 624 a billion dollars in the next fiscal year. This is roughly 14-15% of the total expenditures planned for 2014 for the year. 525-530 billions will go to the maintenance of the armed forces, the purchase and creation of new weapons and equipment. Another about 90 billions are planned to be spent on the continuation of the operation in Afghanistan. Finally, 8,5-9 billions will go to work related to maintaining the state of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors on ships and submarines. For comparison, the Pentagon was allocated 2013 billion for 633 fiscal year. Thus, the savings in the future reporting period will not reach even ten billion. Nevertheless, the leadership of the US military department intends to gradually reduce the budget due to minor expenses and insignificant programs.

Under the “knife” of reduction are several projects that have recently had high hopes. So, in the coming years, the US armed forces will not receive a new infantry fighting vehicle, but transport pilots aviation you will have to use Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft with the available equipment - its modernization is also postponed indefinitely. Also, the Pentagon is forced to abandon the continuation of the purchase of unmanned aerial vehicles RQ-4 Global Hawk, the modernization of cruisers such as Ticonderoga, etc.

Along with saving on some projects, the US military will continue to develop others. Thus, the construction of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter in the 2014 fiscal year is planned to spend about 8,4 billion dollars. The new warships (mostly destroyers of the Arleigh Burke type) will leave almost 11 billions. A slightly smaller amount (of the order of 10 billions) will be spent on the development of military space technology. It is noteworthy that in the 2014 fiscal year, the Pentagon is going to allocate at least 4,5-4,7 billion to cybersecurity. This can be interpreted as proof of the priority of this area.

Small savings will be achieved by adjusting plans for building a global missile defense system. First of all, it is the rejection of the fourth stage of the program with the corresponding consequences. On the development of the new SM-3 Block 2B anti-missiles and a number of other systems, only next year they will be able to save about 500-550 million dollars. Nevertheless, the cost of missile defense will still exceed nine billion. In addition to the SM-3 Block 2B missiles, new reconnaissance satellites for detecting launches of ballistic missiles fell under the reduction. Thanks to this, over the next five years, the Pentagon will additionally save about 1,9-2 billions.

However, the money saved on the missile defense system will actually remain in this program. By reducing costs, it is planned to finance some other work. For example, in the coming years, Alaska may deploy a dozen new interceptor missiles. In addition, the development of existing anti-missile systems will continue: Aegis, THAAD, Patriot air defense system, etc. Due to such a redistribution of money, ultimately, the savings on missile defense will allow for five years to reduce costs only by 600 million dollars.

Similarly, the plans of the military department regarding the air component of the nuclear triad look similar. In 2014, there are no costs for the creation of new nuclear warheads. At the same time, the Pentagon is going to allocate 380 millions of dollars for the creation of new missiles and bombers. As for aviation weapons in general, in the near future, only new high-precision missiles and bombs will be developed.

The last point of the program to reduce military spending is salaries for military and civil servants. The first plan is to reduce the number of the latter and optimize their health insurance programs. In addition, the growth rate of salaries will decrease in 2014. In the current 2013, the salaries of soldiers and officers increased by 1,7%, and in the next fiscal year, the increase will be only one percent.

As a result of all the measures taken, the Pentagon’s leadership intends to gradually optimize expenditures and reduce the military budget without appreciable losses in defense capability. While it is not entirely clear whether he will be able to realize his plans. The fact is that the figures voiced by C. Hagel are only the views of the military department of the presidential administration on the necessary funding. The proposed draft military budget now has to go through Congress. Judging by recent events, the congressmen will fight for every dollar and the Ministry of Defense will most likely have to make some concessions and further reduce the planned costs. The differences between Congress and the Pentagon are already visible: the proposals of the military mean much less savings than congressmen require. So, disputes over the US military budget for the 2014 fiscal year will continue and it is not quite clear how this document will look like at the time of adoption.


On the materials of the sites:
http://ria.ru/
http://lenta.ru/
http://defensenews.com/
http://washingtonpost.com/
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13 comments
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  1. +14
    April 15 2013 08: 07
    Faithful path go comrades! Only better to go running!
    1. +4
      April 15 2013 09: 25
      Do not you think that this is all dust in the eye? Everyone says a lot about this reduction, but if you really look, they remove only secondary projects, but they are not going to refuse the main ones! Like, we are cutting our budget, we can be unloaded, and in general we are peaceful and good. Something I don’t really believe in these assurances, with these Anglo-Saxons you should always keep your ear sharp, otherwise you can easily hang noodles on your ears!
      1. -2
        April 15 2013 11: 10
        Quote: р_у_с_с_к_и_й
        Do not you think that this is all dust in the eye? Everyone says a lot about this reduction, but if you really look, they remove only secondary projects, but they are not going to refuse the main ones! Like, we are cutting our budget, we can be unloaded, and in general we are peaceful and good. Something I don’t really believe in these assurances, with these Anglo-Saxons you should always keep your ear sharp, otherwise you can easily hang noodles on your ears!

        I completely agree. From America’s cutting budget, a lot of news modernized this, bought it, developed this news about the bottom more than from the increasing budget of the Russian Federation, a strange budget cut No.
      2. +2
        April 15 2013 11: 26
        Americans are not fools, they will not destroy their army. They closed unnecessary projects, optimized the army and that's it. As I said, you should not expect reductions, the US will exist until 3 World will begin, and there either they will write off their debts or they will disappear, and while this debt grows, grows and grows and nobody decides because silenok is not enough, and besides, everyone is sitting on the dollar, now Europe will refuse the euro and switch over to the dollar and we are in the 4-th place in the world for the accumulation of the dollar, so the United States itself will not be bent.
        1. Batman
          +2
          April 15 2013 13: 03
          the euro was originally dependent on the dollar. The world is very difficult to get rid of the dollar, because all attempts at deliverance are hardened ...
  2. +4
    April 15 2013 08: 17
    For greater budget savings, I offer the population of the Pentagon ubitsapastenu wassat
  3. UFO
    +1
    April 15 2013 09: 35
    "SLOW" is not the right word, "find the guilty and punish"! To reduce faster. And the fact that the new BMP will not be received is good news! laughing
  4. +2
    April 15 2013 09: 40
    I suggest that the Americans quietly crawl away from all the countries where they have remained due to a misunderstanding, into their viper and there they will quietly make ends. am
  5. +4
    April 15 2013 09: 54
    Hello everyone! While this is only blah blah blah, they are reducing our buildup, but still their military budget is almost 10 times bigger than ours, but we can say that they have cut into fu-35 ..... but we also have - good luck ....! That's when I hear that planes fall there every month (from old age, from lack of repair, from the fact that pilots fly little), when I see that they are folding their bases abroad, and most importantly when I’ll see that they will not be able to fight (Afghanistan, Iraq) and impose their vile essence on other peoples and states, THEN I WILL TELL NORMAL REDUCTION
  6. +3
    April 15 2013 10: 53
    If you want, you don’t want, but the Americans will have to shrink and flee their bases from many camps. With their debt of 17 trillion, this is the only thing left. True, you can arrange a World War III — the war will write everything off, and as history shows, Americans can do it.
  7. Explore
    +1
    April 15 2013 11: 24
    If they withdraw their troops from the territory of other states, close military bases abroad and stop fighting (as well as finance any), they will save half their military budget even without abandoning promising developments. And so - stupidly everything.
    They cut prospective research and social programs, but give away money to Israel, the SSA, the Baltic Limitrophs and our white-tape prostitute, pah - the opposition.
  8. _Forgiven_
    +1
    April 15 2013 23: 54
    Let them cut the budget faster, otherwise Assad hesitated to chase the militants paid by amers throughout Syria. If this would have been painless for the people, then okay. But the situation is difficult in the country, and here, as for evil, the budget is not being cut properly
  9. +1
    April 16 2013 06: 35
    It is necessary to send advisers to them, as they were to us in the 90s. Serdyukov with his aunts. Oh, they quickly optimize everything for them and sell the unnecessary lol
  10. HAM
    0
    April 16 2013 13: 31
    Cheburan will print new dollars - the rest of the world will quietly eat it. That's it.

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