Pentagon abandons two-war doctrine
The US is to abandon its doctrine of always being ready to fight two simultaneous conventional wars.
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said instead the Pentagon will shift its focus to a broader range of challenges including terrorism and cyber-security.
In a sweeping review of US military strategy, he said the Pentagon must prepare for an "uncertain security landscape" where extremists or "non-state actors" sought missile technology or weapons of mass destruction.
Warning that US military power faced new limits and constraints, he said that weaponry, tactics and enemies had overtaken the "familiar contingencies that dominated US planning after the Cold War".
"We have learned through painful experience that the wars we fight are seldom the wars that we planned," said Mr Gates, as he presented the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defence Review and the 2011 budget plan to the Senate armed services committee.
"As a result, the United States needs a broad portfolio of military capabilities, with maximum versatility, across the widest possible spectrum of conflict."
Calling for more investment in aerial drones, helicopters and special operations forces, which have proved vital in the Afghan war, he said the military should focus on winning current conflicts, not putative future ones.
The Obama administration is seeking $741 billion (£463 billion) in defence spending for 2011, including £120 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We have, in a sober and clear-eyed way, assessed risk, set priorities, made trade-offs and identified requirements based on plausible real-world threats, scenarios and potential adversaries," said Mr Gates, making his boldest call yet for reform of a military force that dwarfs the rest of the world's.
Challenges looming on the horizon ranged from "the use of sophisticated new technologies to deny our forces access to the global commons of sea, air, space and cyberspace to the threat posed by non-state groups delivering more cunning and destructive means to attack and terrorize," he said.
Mr Gates underlined his determination to stop the construction of C-17 transport planes because the air force had a sufficient quantity, and of the alternative engine for the F-35 joint striker jet programme.
The defence budget must be approved by Congress, which last year saved both those projects. This year Mr Gates pledged to ask President Barack Obama to veto any bill returned that still included them.
In a surprise move on Monday, the Pentagon chief removed the general in charge of the joint strike fighter programme, the department's largest, and withheld £383 million from the contractor Lockheed Martin after a review warned that the project was going billions over budget.
Attempting to allay fears that the abandonment of the two-war doctrine would be too radical, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said planning for future major conflicts with conventional weaponry remained central to the Pentagon's portfolio.
The review also made clear that Nato and old allies such as Britain remained as important as ever to US thinking given the greater need for intelligence sharing in a more complex global environment.
"The United States cannot sustain a stable international system alone. Challenges to common interests are best addressed in concert with likeminded allies and partners who share responsibility for fostering peace and security," it said.
"Our shared history and interests with the United Kingdom have created a steadfast bond, strengthened in recent years through operations together in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere."
It called for more resources and expertise for dealing with failed states such as Somalia and supporting fragile states such as Yemen, which are ripe for terrorism. It underlined the importance of opening a US cyber-command centre, which has been slowed down by intra-agency wrangling.
For the first time the Pentagon identified global warming as a potential trigger of instability and urged the military to renew efforts to reduce its dependence on oil.
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