Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel warned today that the Pentagon may have to mothball up to three Navy aircraft carriers and order additional sharp reductions in the size of the Army and Marine Corps if Congress doesn't act to avoid massive budget cuts beginning in 2014.
Speaking to reporters, and indirectly to Congress, Hagel said that the full result of the sweeping budget cuts over the next 10 years could leave the nation with an ill-prepared, under-equipped military doomed to face more technologically advanced enemies.
In his starkest terms to date, Hagel laid out a worst-case scenario for the US military if the Pentagon is forced to slash more than USD 50 billion from the 2014 budget and USD 500 billion over the next 10 years as a result of Congressionally-mandated automatic spending cuts.
The Pentagon has been ratcheting up a persistent drumbeat about the dire effects of the budget cuts on national defense, and as Congress continues to wrangle over spending bills in Congress.
Going from 11 to eight or nine carrier strike groups would bring the Navy to its lowest number since World War II. And the troop cuts would shear the Army back to levels not seen since at least 1950, eroding the military's ability to keep forces deployed and combat ready overseas.
Detailing options, Hagel said America may have to choose between having a highly capable but significantly smaller military and having a larger force while reducing special operations forces, limiting research and cutting or curtailing plans to upgrade weapons systems.
That second option, he said, would likely result in the US military using older, less effective equipment against more technologically advanced adversaries. And it would have a greater impact on private defense companies around the country.
The US, said Hagel, risks fielding a military force that in the next few years would be unprepared due to a lack of training, maintenance and upgraded equipment.
And, even if the Pentagon chooses the most dramatic cuts, Hagel said it would still "fall well short" of meeting the reductions required by the automatic budget cuts, particularly during the first five years.
The details Hagel described today are the result of a lengthy review by top Pentagon and military leaders that looked at the impact of budget cuts on the department and developed a series of options to deal with them.
