Special Report: Global Financial Crisis
WASHINGTON, April. 6 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Monday unveiled a bold budget plan to reshape the U.S. military spending with a shift from conventional wars to unconventional conflicts.
A lot of costly conventional programs face termination, delay or restructuring while some programs suited for unconventional conflicts and irregular wars are set to gain.
The following is a list of the losers and gainers in the new U.S. defense budget plan
Losers:
F-22 fighter jets: Gates said the Defense Department would complete its contract for 183 F-22 fighters and add four more, bringing the total to 187, before stopping the purchases.
VH-71 presidential helicopters: Gates said he plans to terminate the program, which had nearly doubled in cost to over 13billion U.S. dollars and was six years behind schedule.
Transformation Satellite Communication System: Gates plans to cancel the program and buy two more Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites instead.
CG-X next generation cruiser: Gates plans to scrap the program for now, which was initially planned to be based on the DDG-1000 design.
Aircraft carriers: Gates also envisions to reduce the number of aircraft carriers from 11 to 10 after 2040.
Future Combat Systems (FCS): Gates will restructure the Army's modernization program and cut costs.
Missile defense: Gates will cut annual funding for missile defense.
Combat Search and Rescue X (CSAR-X) helicopter program: Gates plans to cancel the 15-billion-dollar program to build new search and rescue helicopters.
Amphibious ship and sea-basing programs: Programs such as the 11th Landing Platform Dock (LPD) ship and the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) SHIP will be delayed.
Gainers:
Intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR): budget to be increased by 2 billion dollars.
Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV): Fielding and sustaining 50 Predator-class UAVs.
Army aviation forces: recruiting and training of additional Army helicopter crews and increase the budget by 500 million dollars.
Special forces: increasing special operation personnel by more than 2,800 and buying more aircraft for the special forces.
F-35 fighters: Gates plans to buy more F-35 fighters in fiscal year 2010, raising the F-35 budget from 6.8 billion U.S. dollars to 11.2 billion dollars.
Littoral Combat Ships (LCS): Gates proposes to increase the purchase of LCS, seen as crucial to counterinsurgency operations in coastal regions and to improve inter-theater lift capacity.
F/A-18 fighter jets: Gates plans to buy 31 more F/A-18 fighter jets in fiscal year 2010.
Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV): increasing the charter of Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) ships from two to four until the Pentagon's own production program begins deliveries in 2011.
