US Budget Cuts: Less Troops to Afghanistan, F-35 Production Freeze

07/01/2011 The US is planning to cut its defense expenditure by $78bn in a move that includes freezing the Pentagon's budget by 2015, shrinking army and marine troop levels and abandoning plans for the acquisition of new weapons technology.

The Pentagon overhauled the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program for the second time in a year and said it would buy 41 Boeing Co F/A-18 warplanes over the next three years to offset slower production of the Lockheed plane.

The budget cuts are subject to the approval of the US congress, and involve a further $100bn in cost saving measures. The changes mean that the military would see annual budget increases that barely exceed inflation in coming years and that its budget will effectively remain frozen in 2015 and 2016.

US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Thursday said the cuts are a result of the "extreme fiscal duress" facing the country.

In a news conference, Gates said the White House's proposed budget for the Pentagon next year would be $553 billion, excluding the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, less than a 1 percent increase over what it requested for 2011. Although he said the military could live with flat budgets in the coming years, Gates warned that deeper cuts in troop levels, overseas bases and weapons programs would be "risky at best and potentially calamitous."

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said he thinks the war in Afghanistan will shrink by 2014, when the US plans to hand over security responsibilities to the Afghan government.

This comes while the United States has ordered an additional 1,400 Marines to southern Afghanistan to preempt a Taliban spring offensive, despite a planned troop drawdown starting in July. This announcement was approved by Gates on Wednesday.

Sources in Washington told Ynet that the halt in the production of the advanced stealth jets would not affect the expected delivery of 20 planes to Israel, but that any additional request for combat aircraft on Israel's part would be affected.

Israel's Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren said about three weeks ago that in spite of the failed Israeli- Palestinian talks, Tel Aviv still expected to receive the second F-35 squadron.

The first deal states that Israel would receive an F-35 squadron from 2015 to 2017 for $96 million per plane, along with simulators, spare parts and maintenance equipment, at a total cost of $2.75 billion.

But according to Gates, freezing the F-35 project would save the Pentagon some $4 billion. He said he was aware of the fact that in order to maintain American interests in the world, the US Army must strictly examine its expense procedures.

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