By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT, March 29, 2012 – Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey said today he stands by his testimony that the fiscal 2013 defense budget request grew from the new strategy and was not simply a target number that planners had to hit. [WOTN Editor note: Previously he and other senior Administration appointees have stated the strategy was derived from the budget cuts required of them.]
Speaking with reporters returning to the United States with him after a trip to South America, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the budget request, which trims $487 billion from projected Defense Department spending over 10 years, “was very much a strategy-driven process.”
On the military side, the budget request was the product of not only the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but also the combatant commanders. All agreed with the process, officials said. [political appointees]
The strategy calls for cuts in some areas and more resources in others. It shifts focus to the Asia-Pacific region, beefs up cybersecurity, cuts troops in Europe, continues missile defense and increases efforts to develop partnerships with nations around the world. [Like buying advanced UAV's for NATO, rather than letting allies pay for their own equipment and putting additional stress on military families by rotating Troops on a 6 month tour without their families at a higher per individual cost rather than stationing the same number there, with their families.]
So the strategy looked where resources were needed, and Pentagon planners tied that to the budget process, Dempsey said. “Was cost a factor? Of course it is,” he added. “Cost is a factor in every aspect of our nation’s livelihood.”
Dempsey reiterated the maxim that national power is the aggregate of economic, diplomatic and military capabilities.
“We started with a strategy, we mapped it to the budget – it’s just a fresh step,” he said. “I’ve also been very deliberate and careful, and, I hope, articulate in explaining the budget is balanced in the sense that we’ve affected all of its functions – compensation, health care, modernization, manpower and so forth.” [The proposed "modernization plans" calls for scrapping new technology and R&D in favor of fixing old equipment. The new compensation plan calls for freezing military pay and allowing inflation to erode it. The new health plan calls for Retirees to pay for what they earned. The new manpower calls for 100,000 warriors to be thrown into the unemployment lines. It begins with the Senior NCO's who have given the last 10 years to fighting this Nations wars. One-half of all Army Senior NCO's will face a board to toss them out of the military before their retirements, this year.]
Dempsey said that balance gives him confidence that the military can carry out the strategy.
[All bold words inside brackets are commentary by the WOTN Editor, who experienced the Clinton slashes of the 90's. In other news, Senior Political Appointees of Obama, i.e. General Dempsey, re-iterated today that we must "maintain a bond of trust" with Our Troops.]
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