"Adding capabilities"

Besides the cuts, Gates also requested more money for other programs that he believe will increase the US military's counterinsurgency capabilities.

"He will also be talking a lot about where we are increasing funding for various capabilities that are important to the department and to our national security," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters before the press conference.

"Everybody seems to be focusing on that he (Gates) is making cuts. He's going to be adding a lot of things to capabilities that we need too," he said.

To shift focus to counter-insurgency operations, Gates proposed more funding for special forces and intelligence gathering.

He recommends increasing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance funding by 2 billion dollars, adding 500 million dollars to field and sustain more helicopters, boosting global partnership capacity efforts and increasing special operation personnel by more than 2,800 and buying more aircraft for the special forces.

Gates also proposes to increase the purchase of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), seen as crucial to counterinsurgency operations in coastal regions and to improve inter-theater lift capacity.

The Pentagon chief also recommends increasing funding for some selected conventional weapon programs.

For example, he plans to buy more F-35 fighters in fiscal year 2010, raising the F-35 budget from 6.8 billion US dollars to 11.2 billion dollars.

Shift of focus

Gates' proposal reflects the Obama administration's bid to shift defense spending focus from preparations for large-scale conventional war to counterinsurgency operations which the new US government thinks would likely to be top military challenges in coming decades.

Some analysts said it's the defense chief's "boldest move" to reshape the priorities and capabilities of the US military.

For the record, Gates has argued that the US military is still too oriented toward fighting a conventional war and hasn't devoted enough resources toward preparing for irregular, low-intensity conflicts that he sees continuing into the near future.

"These decisions represent a fundamental shift in direction for the department," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.

Another reason for the shift is the Obama administration's intention to "rein in" rapid growth of defense spending over the Bush years.

Driven by rising war costs, US defense spending had doubled during the tenure of former president George W. Bush and it accounts for 40 percent of the world's total military spending.

Obama said in February that he won't let the military spending to grow "off hooks".

"We are going to continue to find savings in a way that allows us to put the resources where they're needed, but to make sure that we're not simply fattening defense contractors," he said when addressing the defense budget issues on March 24.

In February, Obama proposed to the Congress an overall price tag of 533.7 billion dollars for fiscal year 2010, a 4-percent increase from that of fiscal year 2009.

Obama is due to send a detailed plan of the defense budget proposal to the Congress next month and Gates' announcement before the plan's submission is seen as a move to gain more political support for the president's vision on defense spending.

However, whether the new administration's defense budget proposal will be fully adopted by the Congress is unclear, since the proposed cuts in major weapon programs will meet strong resistance from powerful defense corporations and their lobbyists.

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2009)