WASHINGTON - After nearly a decade of rapid increases in military spending, the Pentagon faces intensifying political and financial pressure to reduce its budget, the establishment of the first serious debate since the 2001 terrorist attacks on size and cost of services of the armed forces.
Legislators, administration officials and analysts believe that the combination of big budget deficits, the liquidation of the war in Iraq and the promise of President Obama to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next year have been conducted Congress to consider reducing funding requests from the Pentagon.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has sought to include the requirements of budget cuts, pointing to the Congress and the White House he can squeeze more efficiency from the bureaucracy of the Pentagon and weapons programs and use savings to maintain fighting forces.
But increased pressure is already showing up in the efforts by Democrats in Congress to move more rapidly than Pentagon officials had planned to cut the budget request the Administration for next year.
And in the longer term, with concern growing about 13 billion dollars of government debt, a bipartisan commission to reduce the deficit is warning that the reductions in military spending may be needed to help dig the nation out of its hole Financial.
"We're going to have to take a critical look at the defense if we are serious about deficit reduction," said Erskine Bowles B, a chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, who is a co-chairman of the Commission deficit. Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican from New Hampshire who is also the Debt Committee, said that if the panel pushes for cuts in discretionary spending, the defense must be examined, "perhaps another basic commission at closing.
Mr. Gates has called for the Pentagon budget to continue our long-term growth of 1 percent a year after inflation, plus the costs of war. He has averaged a growth rate adjusted for inflation of 7 percent per year over the last ten years (almost 12 percent per year, without adjusting for inflation), including costs of war. So far, Obama has asked Congress to increase spending next year's total of 2.2 percent, to 708 billion - 6.1 per cent higher than the peak under the Bush Administration.
Mr. Gates argues that if the Pentagon's budget is allowed to continue to grow by 1 percent per year, it may find 2 or 3 per cent per cent in the economies of bureaucrats at the Ministry of reinvesting in the army - and this will enough money to meet national security needs. In one of the paradoxes of budget battles in Washington, Mr. Gates, although he tries to avoid deeper cuts, is trying to kill weapons programs, he said the army did not need, despite the objections of members of Congress who want to protect jobs.
Mr. Gates enjoys bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and has considerable sway within the administration. But while he may hold the line against large reductions for the moment, analysts say support for military expenditure could quickly erode once the Pentagon withdrew a significant number of troops in Afghanistan.
"In the case of the Pentagon, they lived very fat and happy so long that they have almost lost touch with reality," said Gordon Adams, who oversaw the budgets of national security under President Clinton.
Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said he would be looking first at the tax increases and changes in Social Security and Medicare to reduce the deficit, and that n 'there was "no way" the Congress would make significant reductions in the military while more than 100,000 troops were still at war. But once most of them return, I am almost certain pieces are coming - on defense and overall budget, "he said.
The course of the war in Afghanistan will no doubt have an impact on the debate, as might be the result of the midterm elections and, ultimately, the presidential race in 2012.
But the early signs of pressure on military spending have surfaced, both the House and Senate are moving to cut ask the administration's Pentagon budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
The Democrats of the Senate Appropriations Committee voted last week to cut $ 8 billion of the Pentagon's request for an increase of 18 billion dollars in its basic operations.
Representative Norm Dicks, Democrat of Washington and the chairman of the subcommittee on defense appropriations of the House, plans to cut $ 7 billion budget request for the administration. "There are a lot of support here for restraint," he said.
In the short term, concerns about the deficit could help Mr. Gates stopped the two major weapons programs, he identified this year - a spare engine for the new Joint Strike Fighter and the purchase of five more C-17 aircraft Freight Boeing.
General Electric and Rolls-Royce have lobbied hard to save their engines, which would compete with one another for a maximum of $ 100 billion of the company.
Mr. Inouye said that the opposition of the administration, "and facing a deficit, the deal is dead."
Mr. Gates has sought to define the terms of the wider debate with a speech in May at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas
"The military expenditure of the big things and small can and should expect a closer, more strict examination, Mr. Gates said." Geyser has been turned off, and stay away for a period of time. "
Mr. Gates has followed the orders for the military and Pentagon agencies to find $ 7 billion in spending reductions and efficiency for the year 2012, reaching $ 37 billion annually by 2016.
Rahm Emanuel, the head of Mr. Obama's staff said the president fully supported the efforts of Mr. Gates, who have already put in motion to set aside savings or height more than three dozen systems weapons in 2009. "It is not as usual," said Emanuel.
Senior officials said they hoped the efforts of Mr. Gates would help quiet critics who questioned why the military expenditures have been exempted from the president's order to reduce by 5 percent in the budgets of most national .
Currently, the administration projects that the Pentagon's base budget and additional war spending will peak at 708 billion dollars over the next year, although analysts say it is likely that the Pentagon will need at least $ 30000000000 more in additional funding for the war then.
Two-thirds of spending on the Pentagon's personnel costs. It is possible that the Pentagon will have to examine for the first time reductions in health benefits offered to active and retired military and their family.
Some analysts believe that the Pentagon would eventually be pressured to reduce the size of the armed forces.
Mr. Adams, the agent Clinton administration budget, wrote in a recent analysis that "for any real savings on the budgets of the defense to occur, it would reduce end strength." But the Pentagon strongly opposes reducing the number of troops, "said Peter R. Orszag, director of the President's Office of Management and Budget.
"Mr. Gates and military officials have said very clearly they do not support a reduction of resistance to the end," Orszag said.
He said there is little comparison to the last period of significant cuts in military spending and personnel - in the 1990s after the collapse of communism.
"At the end of the Cold War, we could imagine a significant downsizing of the U.S. military," Orszag said. "This is a proposal fundamentally different from the situation we find ourselves today."
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