A top Pentagon official said the military will continue its shift to the Asia-Pacific, maintaining the effort will not be derailed by budget cuts and a reexamination of plans to focus more on the region.
Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Monday in Washington there is a “theory that our rebalance (to the Asia-Pacific) will not be lasting, or that it’s not sustainable,” but “this theory doesn’t fit the facts.”
“The rebalance will continue and in fact gain momentum for two reasons,” he said during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank. One reason is that “U.S. interests in the region are enduring, and so also will be our political and economic presence there.” The second reason is that “we have the resources to accomplish the rebalance,” he said.
“Some who wish to question the rebalance to the Asia-Pacific theater point to the current, seemingly endless debate in Washington about the U.S. budget and wonder whether all this can be accomplished,” he said. Yet he noted that the United States will continue to dominate the world in spending on defense, and that much of the rest of military investments are by countries friendly to America.
The sequestration budget cuts, which started March 1 and could tap $500 billion in defense spending over a decade, wont’ “change these facts in a significant way,” he said. Sequestration will reduce current fiscal year 2013 spending by $41 billion through October.
Yet Carter said “wherever we have flexibility (in applying those FY ’13 cuts) we are favoring and protecting the rebalance.” He gave the military services and components direction in January about what is protected from sequestration and, as he said Monday, it “explicitly directs the protection, wherever possible, of activities related to the rebalance this year.” The services and components are applying that guidance now, he said.
Beyond FY ’13, Carter said he hopes Congress and the White House resume more-normal budgeting processes. While he acknowledged it is not known how the defense budget will fare in ongoing talks over balancing the federal deficit, Carter declared: “The U.S. defense rebalance to the Asia-Pacific is not in jeopardy.”
Meanwhile, Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey are conducting a review of the defense strategic guidance President Barack Obama released in January 2012, which calls for strengthening the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region while shrinking the size of conventional ground forces as troops draw down from Afghanistan. Their review–the Strategic Choices and Management Review, due May 31–will assess the year-old strategy in light of budget cuts and help define the defense posture over the next decade.
Pentagon officials insist the new review will not abandon the shift to the Asia-Pacific.
Carter noted at the CSIS speech how Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said last week that “the goal of the review is to ensure we can better execute the strategic guidance set out by the president, including our rebalance to the Asia-Pacific.”