WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Monday outlined the most sweeping changes in military spending priorities in decades, proposing the elimination of a long list of big-ticket programs to save billions of dollars and swing the Pentagon's emphasis from conventional conflicts to irregular warfare.
If Congress goes along, the cuts could spell the end for many of the military's best-known weapons programs, including much of the Army's Future Combat Systems, the Air Force's F-22 fighter, the next generation of Navy destroyers and the C-17 cargo plane, which is built in Long Beach. A new fleet of presidential helicopters also would be dropped under the plan.
At the same time, Gates said he wanted to put more money into intelligence gathering and surveillance, as well as into personnel growth in the military services, which he said were at risk of "hollowing" because of tight staffing. He also would pump new spending into medical and psychological treatment.
Gates wants to spend $2 billion more in coming years on surveillance aircraft, including a big increase for armed and unmanned Predator and Reaper drones.
The steps reflect a widely held view among military leaders that the Pentagon must devote more of its resources to small, unconventional fights as opposed to large-scale wars against foes of comparable military strength.
"We must re-balance this department's programs in order to institutionalize and finance our capabilities to fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years ahead," Gates said, adding that the Pentagon also needed to remain on guard for larger confrontations.
All of the changes must be accepted by Congress, which frequently overrides the military's efforts to alter the direction of Pentagon programs.
The overall size of the defense budget, $534 billion, had already been announced. But Gates had not outlined his spending priorities before Monday.
Under his plan, 50% of the budget would be used to counter conventional threats, with about 10% going to go irregular warfare and 40% to weapons useful to both types of conflicts.
"I'm not trying to have irregular capabilities take the place of the conventional capabilities," Gates said. "I'm just trying to get the irregular guys to have a seat at the table."
