Obama promises agile, flexible military, despite cuts

President Barack Obama insisted today that the United States will maintain what he calls the best-equipped military in US history despite deep and looming defence budget cuts.

But Pentagon leaders acknowledged the changes carry additional risk.

"Our military will be leaner, but the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority," Obama said in a rare appearance in the Pentagon briefing room.

Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and a row of top military brass lined the stage behind him, underscoring Pentagon support for cuts that Panetta and others said they know will be criticised as too drastic.

Obama said the strategy is designed to contend with hundreds of billions of dollars in budget cuts and refocus the United States' national security priorities after a decade dominated by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The strategy, devised through a comprehensive review by civilian and military leaders, centred on the military the country needs after the "long wars of the last decade are over", Obama said.

Panetta said smaller military budgets will mean some trade-offs and that the US will take on "some level of additional but acceptable risk".

But he said that in a changing world, the Pentagon would have been forced to make a strategy shift anyway. He says the money crisis merely forced the government to face the shift that is taking place now.

The president announced that the military will be reshaped over time with an emphasis on countering terrorism, maintaining a nuclear deterrent, protecting the US homeland, and "deterring and defeating aggression by any potential adversary".

Those are not new military missions, and Obama announced no new capabilities or defence initiatives. He described a US force that will retain much of its recent focus, with the exception of fighting a large-scale, prolonged conflict like the newly ended Iraq mission or the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

"As we end today's wars and reshape our armed forces, we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies," he wrote in a preamble to the new strategy, which is titled, Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defence.

The strategy hints at a reduced US military presence in Europe and says Asia will be a bigger priority. It also emphasises improving US capabilities in the areas of cyberwarfare and missile defence.

China is a particular worry because of its economic dynamism and rapid defence buildup. A more immediate concern is Iran, not only for its threats to disrupt the flow of international oil but also for its nuclear ambitions.

Obama's decision to announce the strategy himself underscores the political dimension of Washington's debate over defence savings. The administration says smaller Pentagon budgets are a must but will not come at the cost of sapping the strength of a military in transition, even as it gets smaller.

In a presidential election year, the strategy gives Obama a rhetorical tool to defend his Pentagon budget-cutting choices.

Republican contenders for the White House already have criticised Obama on a wide range of national security issues, including missile defence, Iran and planned reductions in ground forces.

The new strategy moves the US further from its long-standing goal of being able to successfully fight two major regional wars - like the 1991 Gulf War to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait or a prospective ground war in Korea - at the same time.

The document released today made clear that while some current missions of the military will be curtailed, none will be scrapped entirely.

"Wholesale divestment of the capability to conduct any mission would be unwise, based on historical and projected uses of US military forces and our inability to predict the future," the document said.

The administration and Congress already are trimming defence spending to reflect the closeout of the Iraq war and the drawdown in Afghanistan. The massive $662bn (€517.7bn) defence budget planned for next year is $27bn (€21.1bn) less than Obama wanted and $43bn (€33.bn) less than Congress gave the Pentagon this year.

The Pentagon announced no specifics on the size of expected troop reductions; the Army and Marine Corps already are set to shrink beginning in 2015.

The document said the Pentagon will have to find savings in pay and healthcare benefits for members of the military, but it offered no specifics.