(by permission, Anthony Freda, www.anthonyfreda.com)  Thanks, Anthony.  Easy to sell war to us, isn't it?

The blogosphere and print media are abuzz with Secretary of Defense Gates’ announcement of austerity measures, signaling that the President had charged him with decreasing the Pentagon budget in harmony with the shared sacrifices that would be needed in all segments of government spending. 

Yesterday, Jan. 6, 2011, the number was announced often as $178 billion in cuts over five years.  Overnight it seems that some numbers-crunching wags did the math and found that $100 billion of the program and weapons cuts were allotted to other Pentagon projects.  Oops.  Today’s figures mention $78 billion in cuts over five years, and $100 billion sliding around to other columns in the budget.  ‘Investments’, some call them; 'Shifts’, others call them.  We would call them faux savings, like Lucy making lists of all the shoes and hats she wanted to buy, but didn’t, and trying to convince Ricky that she saved him money, when she only bought the sweet dress she couldn’t live without.

The Pentagon’s base budget has doubled since the September 11 attacks; the $554 billion number the White House will offer to congress for the fiscal year starting in October is $12 billion less than Gates had wanted, but he will make do.  Please remember that the Pentagon budget is not the defense budget, and doesn’t include the cost of the wars.

And the five-year defense plan amounts to almost three trillion dollars, still minus the wars.  The five-year cuts would amount to 2.67% of that number; 2.67 % of the Penatagon base budget.

The Congressional Research Service estimates that the cost of the GWOT since 9/11 has been $1.12 trillion (pdf here)  Stare at that number long enough and you get dizzy thinking what that money might have spent on improving the lives of Americans who have bailed out banks, lost pensions, jobs, hope, sometimes homes…and are apparently about to be asked to sacrifice more.  Or be informed they will be sacrificing further.

So what’s being jettisoned in the Pentagon budget?  At the top of the list is $15.5 billion for the General Dynamics Expeditionary Force Vehicle, an amphibious troop landing vehicle for Marines.  Its production is some 176% over cost already, and five years behind schedule.  Please also remember that cost over-runs are just normal business with Federal contracts; but in this case the Marine Corps Commandant agrees with Gates, and instead the Marines will buy a new fleet of vehicles to land rifle squads on land from the sea.   

Some Republicans aren't happy about the cuts.  Representative Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican, said yesterday about the cuts to the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, “Do we as a nation think that the Marine Corps should be able to get from ships to the shore in a battle? If so, cutting the EFV is absurd,  If the president and the secretary of Defense want to get rid of the Marine Corps, they should come out and say that directly.”

A Raytheon ground- launched defensive missile system for the Army will be canceled, Gates said, and the Marine version of a Lockheed Martin F-35 jet will be slowed by two years, he said.  Slowed by two years.

Army troop levels will be reduced by 27,000, about 4.7 percent, starting in 2015 and the Marines’ head count will decline by about 20,000, about 9.8 percent, Gates said, given his projections for a possible turnover of security in Afghanistan.   Gates also announced he will send an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan ahead of the planned draw-down next summer. (Keep your eye on that number, please, as summer draw-downs commence.)  They will head south to Kandahar, O Kandahar!, where the Taliban still rule, and are proving harder to dislodge than early estimates foretold.  You will remember that the region was to be last summer’s showcase COIN strategy success.

Gates plans to cut the number of private military contractors by nearly a third over the next three years, maintain a freeze on civilian military salaries, and raise health-care premiums for military retirees and their families for the first time since 1995. Congress may not approve that item, though.  He also said he would shrink the number of generals and admirals from about 900 to 800.

What systems and products are the winners in the defense lottery?  Oh, please let me just cut and paste from Bloomberg:

About $70 billion from cost-cutting programs will be plowed back into new purchases in the next five years, Gates said.

The Air Force will buy more Reaper drones made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of San Diego; increase the purchase of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, a launch rockets made by a joint venture of Chicago-based Boeing Co. and Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin; and upgrade radars on board Boeing’s F-15 jet fighters, Gates said.

The Navy will invest in a new generation of electronic jammers that neutralize enemy radar, allowing U.S. ships and planes to operate freely, Gates said. It will begin development of a seaborne unmanned strike and surveillance plane and will purchase a destroyer, a Littoral Combat Ship and fleet oilers, he said.

Purchases from Boeing

The sea service also will buy 41 more Boeing-made F/A-18 jet fighters to compensate for the delay in Lockheed’s F-35 program, according to a Pentagon document sent to lawmakers.

The Army will upgrade its fleet of General Dynamics-made Abrams tanks, Stryker combat vehicles and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Gates said. It will begin fielding a new communications system for soldiers on the battlefield, he said.

Here’s more on the Winners and Losers.  The stock market is jiggling numbers already, of course. 

God/Goddess bless the United States of America, and all of us.

(courtesy of Anthony Freda At www.AnthonyFreda.com)  Artiste extraordinaire.

(cross-posted at my.firedoglake.com)