US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
When US Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the defense budget for 2010 on the 6th, he stressed that the US military should drastically reduce the expenditure on R&D and purchase expensive and advanced armaments, and invest more resources to meet the equipment demand in real battlefields such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Analysts said that although it is still unknown whether Gates’s budget can be approved by the US Congress, it reflects a certain shift in the US military strategy.
Give up some "advanced" weapons
According to the defense budget submitted by Gates, the US military plans to reduce or stop some expensive arms production and R&D projects that are not needed at present.
As far as the navy is concerned, a plan to develop a new cruiser based on DDG1000 design will be abolished and the fleet upgrade plan will be suspended.
In the future, the navy will continue to use the main ship type "Ali Burke" class destroyer used in recent years.
It is said that the DDG1000 destroyer is a multi-functional warship that can avoid radar detection.
After the design of this destroyer, it was delayed to be delivered for manufacture, but the cost climbed to more than $3 billion per ship in the past 10 years. Therefore, the US Navy called for abandoning the project, but under the lobbying pressure of congressional interest groups, it only reduced the number of reserved ships from 32 to 3.
In the defense budget, Gates set the premise for purchasing the three ships under construction, that is, the contractor needs to move the two scattered construction sites to the same dock, otherwise the navy will only consider purchasing one of them.
As far as the Army is concerned, the $160 billion future combat systems R&D project will be cut.
Gates specifically pointed out that the chariot research and development project costing $87 billion in the system will be cancelled.
In view of the fact that roadside low-tech bomb attacks are the main cause of American casualties in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, Gates thinks that instead of developing light chariots with advanced concepts, it is better to spend money on anti-mine ambush vehicles. Based on a South African chariot in the early 1990s, this armored vehicle is said to have effectively reduced the casualties of American troops since it was put into use in Iraq.
For the Air Force, Gates intends to cancel the VH-71 presidential helicopter project costing $13 billion, the C17 new transport aircraft project and an advanced military satellite research and development plan, and at the same time reduce the production of each F-22 fighter at a cost of $140 million, which will be discontinued after 187 fighters are produced.
The F-22 fighter, nicknamed "Raptor", is the most expensive fighter in active service of the US military and the first fourth-generation fighter in the world. Although it has the functions of stealth and supersonic cruise, it is not suitable for helping the US military to deal with roadside bombs in Iraq or hunt down terrorists hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan. Gates said that F-22 fighters are of little use to American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Increase the need of real war
While proposing to cancel and reduce many weapons programs, Gates announced that he would increase funds for other weapons programs. Gates suggested that the navy buy more ships with fast sailing speed, which is beneficial for the military to carry out offshore missions, and suggested that the Air Force increase the number of F-35 joint attack fighters purchased from 14 in fiscal year 2009 to 30 in fiscal year 2010, and the project funds increased from $6.8 billion to $11.2 billion. Gates also said that the Pentagon will increase the funds used to fight against anti-American militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, equip special forces to hunt down terrorists, stop reducing the number of air force and navy personnel, and expand the size of the US Army and Marine Corps, with an increase of 65,000 for the Army and 27,000 for the Marine Corps.
Gates also proposed to allocate $2 billion for the research and development and application of surveillance technology, including the addition of 50 Predator drones. It is said that since the beginning of this year, the US military has repeatedly dispatched Predators to crack down on Al Qaeda and Taliban forces hiding in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Serve the "current war"
American public opinion believes that the main purpose of the defense budget submitted by Gates is to serve the "current war". The expensive armament project that Gates plans to cut is either a combat system formed during the Cold War or an advanced project aimed at mastering the hostile forces of super-sophisticated technology, which is not in line with the current situation. He stressed that what the United States needs is weapons that can be used to equip American soldiers to fight against real enemies.
The Los Angeles Times believes that Gates’ purpose is to shift the focus of military spending from large-scale wars against traditional rivals such as China and Russia to small-scale conflicts against armed forces such as the Taliban, which is the first step for the Obama administration to rebuild the US military. This fundamental and directional change in the focus of national defense spending is essentially to increase the ability of rapid deployment of troops, global response and information warfare, reduce the equipment needed for large-scale wars, and reduce the investment and installation of heavy equipment and traditional large-scale weapons development projects in accordance with the "need to guide contracts", rather than mainly considering meeting the requirements of various services and arms and indulging their selfish greed.
Correspondingly, the deployment of the US missile defense system may also be adjusted. In the defense budget submitted by Gates, the expenditure on missile defense projects will be reduced by $1.4 billion. He proposed to increase investment in regional anti-missile projects targeting missiles with short range and relatively limited strike capability, but to cancel or postpone the deployment of projects targeting intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Although the day before Gates’ defense budget was published, North Korea announced the successful launch of an experimental communication satellite, and arms dealers such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin took the opportunity to lobby that Gates would strengthen the existing multi-layer missile defense system in the United States in the defense budget, but it was not adopted in the end.
Military spending still ranks first in the world.
Analysts said that Gates’ defense budget was a helpless move when the United States was mired in the financial crisis and faced with financial difficulties. Gates himself said bluntly that the purpose of proposing to cancel those eye-catching sophisticated weapons programs is to save money.
Even so, once Gates’ plan was announced, it caused doubts in the United States. In addition to worrying about whether the United States has the ability to defend its homeland security after reducing conventional weapons, public opinion also believes that this plan will certainly not be approved by Congress. Because the plan harms the interests of arms dealers, these arms dealers will inevitably put pressure on members of Congress who represent their interests and obstruct the adoption of the plan. Even if it is passed, it must be transformed in the implementation.
International public opinion generally believes that the so-called worry about the impact of Gates’ reduction of the defense budget on American security is simply unnecessary, because Gates’ plan to reduce large-scale advanced weapons and equipment is itself based on "the United States’ military strength is the only one." Although many armament projects have been drastically reduced, the total defense budget submitted by Gates in 2010 will still reach $534 billion, up from $519 billion in 2009. In fact, the total defense budget of the United States has accounted for more than 40% of the global military expenditure for many years. If the cost of counter-terrorism is added, its defense expenditure is almost equivalent to the sum of all other countries and regions in the world.
Editor: Li Yongchao
