US has highest defence budget in world
Sunday, 6 June 2010
From Fazle Rashid
NEW YORK, June 05: The United States has the biggest defence budget in the world. It spends more than $21,000 per minute ($21,000 per minute) according to a previous report. The US defence budget is said to be four times bigger than the defence budget of the rest of the world. China's defence spending is second highest after the US.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates who also served in the same capacity under President Bush (Jr) has ordered the military and the civilian bureaucracy of Pentagon to muster billions of dollars in annual savings to pay for war fighting operations, the New York Times quoting senior officials said. His goal is to slash defence spending by $7.0 billion by 2012 and gradually raise it to $37 billion annually by 2016.
No branch of armed services or civilian bureaucrats and agencies and directorate would be immune form "the pain of annual cost cutting which would become institutionalised." Robert Gates has verbally issued a spending guideline prior to his departure for Singapore where the Asian Security Conference is to be held.
The goal is to force all the Defence Department agencies and organisations and all of the armed services to save enough money in their management, personnel policies and logistics to guarantee a 3.0 per cent real growth each year, beyond inflation in the accounts that pay for combat operations, the NYT report said. Given the nation's fiscal situation there is an urgency for doing this rather than shifting more of nation's resources toward national defence, said William Lynn, deputy defence secretary.
NEW YORK, June 05: The United States has the biggest defence budget in the world. It spends more than $21,000 per minute ($21,000 per minute) according to a previous report. The US defence budget is said to be four times bigger than the defence budget of the rest of the world. China's defence spending is second highest after the US.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates who also served in the same capacity under President Bush (Jr) has ordered the military and the civilian bureaucracy of Pentagon to muster billions of dollars in annual savings to pay for war fighting operations, the New York Times quoting senior officials said. His goal is to slash defence spending by $7.0 billion by 2012 and gradually raise it to $37 billion annually by 2016.
No branch of armed services or civilian bureaucrats and agencies and directorate would be immune form "the pain of annual cost cutting which would become institutionalised." Robert Gates has verbally issued a spending guideline prior to his departure for Singapore where the Asian Security Conference is to be held.
The goal is to force all the Defence Department agencies and organisations and all of the armed services to save enough money in their management, personnel policies and logistics to guarantee a 3.0 per cent real growth each year, beyond inflation in the accounts that pay for combat operations, the NYT report said. Given the nation's fiscal situation there is an urgency for doing this rather than shifting more of nation's resources toward national defence, said William Lynn, deputy defence secretary.