“How Tough Is Cutting $400 Billion?”

Just how tough is it going to be for the Pentagon and other national-security agencies to cut $400 billion from their spending between now and 2023? Those are the marching orders President Obama has given his tea, led by budget-cutting expert Leon Panetta, who has just moved from the CIA to the Pentagon. John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security and your Battlelander discuss the challenge with Dave Barno, retired Army lieutenant general, and Nora Bensahel, a military strategist formerly at the Rand Corp. and now at CNAS.

Related Topics: dave barno, nora bensahel, Command Post, National Security
  • Latest on Battleland

    MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GettyImages

    Only One Year of U.S.-Led Fighting Left

    President Obama’s goal at the NATO summit this week is looking increasingly clear: wrap up U.S. troops’ combat role over the coming year, and get the allies to pay more money to enable the Afghan military to fill the gap.

    Getty Images

    House Pushes for East Coast Missile Shield

    The House has approved a $643 billion defense-spending bill for 2013 that’s $3.7 billion more than the Obama Administration, and its Pentagon, is seeking. That’s just about the same amount the Congressional Budget Office estimates the House bill’s push for an East Coast missile shield will cost over the next five years.

    Photo by Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images

    The Pentagon’s “Washington Monument Strategy”

    Whenever federal bureaucrats running the nation’s parks get antsy that their purse is likely to shrink, they roll out something long known as the “Washington Monument strategy.” That’s the tried-and-true technique of warning the public that if money isn’t forthcoming, one of the first budget cuts will force the shutting down of the popular obelisk to Washington, D.C., tourists.

blog comments powered by Disqus