Panetta to Replace Gates as Secretary of Defense
Laicie Olson | Apr 27, 2011 |
1 
As has been rumored for some time now, President Obama is expected to announce this week his decision to appoint Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta to replace Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The move comes as part of a significant restructuring of the president’s security team. General David Petraeus will reportedly replace Panetta at CIA, General John Allen will replace Petraeus, and Ryan Crocker will replace Karl Eikenberry as US Ambassador in Kabul.
Gates has been on his way out for some time now and will officially depart this summer, leaving behind some big shoes to fill, in more ways than one. Above and beyond Gates’ admirable legacy, Panetta will face the issues left behind: Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya on top of a massive deficit and impending defense cuts. The job won’t be an easy one.
Choosing Panetta, former head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), signals the president’s commitment to taking a hard look at the Pentagon budget at a time when few, certainly not the Republican leadership, are even willing to offer it up for discussion.
Security Matters, Defense Spending, Congress, Panetta, Gates (all tags)
Official Discomfort with Afghanistan War?
Bridget | Mar 02, 2011 | 0 By: John Isaacs
While key Administration officials continue to vigorously support the war in Afghanistan, there appears to be a less-than-enthusiastic larger view about the war.
Take Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In his recent speech at West Point, he pointed out:
“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”
That does not sound like a high level official who thinks that the United States military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq were bang up good ideas. Gates is not advocating getting out; he just does not think getting in was smart.
This skepticism was amplified at a February 17, 2011 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. There, Admiral Michael Mullen (USN), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not make the situation in Afghanistan sound exactly rosy.
A Pretty New Pie Chart
Laicie Olson | May 21, 2010 | 3 
The United States remains the global leader in defense spending, surpassing the next closest country by more than eight times.
In 2008, the most recent year for which complete global data is available, the US approved $696.3 billion in defense budget authority (fiscal 2010 dollars). This figure includes funding for the Pentagon base budget, Department of Energy-administered nuclear weapons activities, and supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan.
This number is eight times more than Russia, 15 times more than Japan, 47 times more than Israel, and nearly 73 times more than Iran.
See the full analysis - and the pie chart - here.
Security Matters, Defense Spending, Gates, FY11, Global Defense Spending, Iran Watch, Russia, China (all tags)
Gates Calls for Real Spending Priorities
Laicie Olson | May 11, 2010 | 1 
By Lt. Gen. Robert Gard and Laicie Olson
Invoking the memory of President Eisenhower’s farewell address last weekend, Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a fiery speech aimed at overhauling the Pentagon’s budget and restructuring its bureaucracy.
This rhetoric is anything but new, and builds on previous initiatives set out by the Secretary.
Just last Monday at a Navy League conference, Gates urged the Navy and Marine Corps to think more deeply about the challenges facing their costliest platforms – including aircraft carriers that run $11 billion each, future ballistic missile submarines costing $7 billion apiece and a Marine Corps amphibious assault vehicle “suited only to Eisenhower’s D-Day planning.”
While he later joked that he is “not crazy” and wouldn’t just cut out a carrier, the speech ruffled more than a few feathers.
Security Matters, Defense Spending, FY11, FY12, Gates, Congress, C-17, JSF, Extra Engine (all tags)
Gates: Kicking A$$ and Taking Names (Or At Least Talking About It)
Laicie Olson | Apr 28, 2010 | 2 
In an essay for the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Defense Secretary Robert Gates issues yet another welcome call for reform. While the QDR may not exactly have been “shaped by a bracing dose of realism,” Gates does seem to be setting his priorities, one by one (very little by very little).
Yesterday in The Hill, Gordon Adams and Matthew Leatherman point out that the 2010 QDR:
… gives equal priority to every mission the Pentagon and the military want to undertake: current wars, future conventional deterrence and war-fighting, counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, stability operations, overseas presence, power projection, and homeland defense. No mission is given lower priority. In fact, rather than change its mission planning, the Pentagon has added the new missions to the existing requirement of fighting two major wars at nearly the same time.
This is too much, and Gates seems to agree. In Foreign Affairs, Gates argues that in the future, the U.S. will “only be as good as the effectiveness, credibility, and sustainability of its local partners” and lends credence to the Nixon Doctrine, which used military and economic assistance to resist Soviet-sponsored insurgencies without using U.S. troops.
As we all know well today, military intervention is costly, both monetarily and morally. Gates notes that, “The U.S. military, although resilient in spirit and magnificent in performance, is under stress and strain fighting two wars and confronting diffuse challenges around the globe.”
Security Matters, Defense Spending, FY11, Gates, Iraq & Afghanistan (all tags)
