Secretary Gates has launched a “defense review” in response to the White House announcement that “security” budgets (largely defense) will be lowered $400 billion over the next twelve years. While the decision to undertake a review sounds dramatic, the required budget changes are not as serious as they might appear. Read the …
When the President announced his new national security team last week most of the attention focused on David Petraeus at CIA and the problem of winding down the war in Afghanistan. Leon Panetta’s nomination as Secretary of Defense went almost unnoticed, by comparison.
But Panetta has the bigger challenge: how to manage a build down in …
President Obama’s latest announcement that he intends to seek $400 billion in reductions from his current security funding plans between FY 2012 and 2023 is only the latest signal that a defense build-down is under way. What is missing is a detailed plan for managing the build-down; that will be the responsibility of the next …