WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will unveil a "more realistic" vision for its military on Thursday, with plans to cut ground forces and invest more in air and maritime power at a time of fiscal restraint, officials familiar with the plans said on Wednesday.
The strategic review of U.S. security interests will also emphasize an American presence in Asia, with less attention overall to Europe, Africa and Latin America alongside slower growth in the Pentagon's budget, the officials said.
Its biggest change is an acceptance that the United States cannot afford to maintain the ground troops to fight more than one major war at once, a move way from the "win-win" strategy that has dominated Pentagon funding decisions for decades.
The move to a "win-spoil" plan, allowing U.S. forces to fight one campaign and stop or block another conflict, includes a recognition that the White House would need to ramp up public support for further engagement and draw more heavily on reserve and national guard troops when required.
President Barack Obama will help launch the review at the Pentagon on Thursday, and is expected to emphasize that the size of the military budget has been growing and will continue to grow in spite of the recalibration, albeit at a smaller pace.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are set to hold a news conference to flesh out the contents of the review after Obama's remarks, which are also set to emphasize the need to rein in spending at a time when U.S. budgets are tight.
Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby said with the military winding down a decade of war that saw troops deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq, it was appropriate to re-evaluate the role of U.S. forces abroad.
"From an operational perspective it's an opportune time to take a look at what the U.S. military is doing and what it should be doing or should be preparing itself to do over the next 10 to 15 years," he said on Wednesday.
"So yes, the budget cuts are certainly a driver here, but so quite frankly are current events," Kirby said.
A congressional staffer said some lawmakers on Capitol Hill were worried that defense budget cuts, required by an August debt ceiling deal, would end up being more blunt than strategic and erode the U.S. military's power.
"We expect to see a strategy that's driven less by the threats we face than the math we face," he said.
(Editing by Paul Simao)
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