The early months of Barack Obama’s presidency have had everything to do with budgeting and spending. From delegating cash advance loans for troubled corporations to making the national budget, there’s never a dull moment.  Now comes the budget for America’s defense, and it’s a doozy.

Christopher Hinton reports for Marketwatch that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has announced huge changes across the board, reflecting a greater priority towards the type of fighting used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cutbacks

Gates has revealed that America will stop buying F-22 Raptors and C-17 Globemasters by year’s end. We will also end the TSAT satellite program and the use of the CSAR-X (See: http://www.boeing.com/rotorcraft/military/hh47/index.html). Orders for new presidential helicopters will be delayed and the number of contractors working for the Pentagon will be reduced significantly.

But the contractors will be replaced. “Our goal is to hire as many as 13,000 new civil servants in fiscal 2010 to replace contractors and up to 30,000 new civil servants in place of contractors over the next five years,” Gates said.

Increases

The Pentagon plans to increase its budget for the F-35 fighter jet to $11.2 billion (from $6.8 billion), which will translate to 30 jets in fiscal 2010. That’s up from 14 the Pentagon bought over the past year. And over the next five years, they’d like 513 more F-35s, leading to a fleet that’s 2,443-strong.

The Pentagon will also increase spending to improve our cyberspace defenses and bring up the numbers of the country’s terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD (see http://www.army-technology.com/projects/thaad/)) short-to-medium range missile defense systems. Six more Aegis ships will provide “Star Wars” style ballistic missile defense. In the way of personnel, the Army will grow by 547,400 and the Marines 202,000.

America’s defense spending since 9/11 has nearly doubled. Since 2001, the total U.S. federal budget has grown nearly 90 percent. Under President Obama, 2010 will clock in at $3.55 trillion.

Gates’ thoughts

“My recommendations represent the cumulative outcome of a lifetime spent in the national security arena… and lessons learned from over two years of leading this department and in particular, from our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said at a press conference. In spite of this, Wall Street took a sour view of Gates’ announcement, as Standard & Poor maintained their negative view of the defense sector.

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