Profile - Leon Panetta, US Secretary of Defense
As the US Secretary of Defense heads into his first Budget against the backdrop of the failure of the congressional super committee, we take a look at the CV of the man who controls the world’s largest defence and security budget.
| Name: | Leon Panetta |
| Age: | 73 |
| Job: | US Secretary of State of Defence |
| Previous Notable Roles: | Director of the CIA (2009-2011) Chief of Staff (Clinton Administration) (1994-1997) |
| Military Experience: | A brief three year stint after University, leaving as First Lieutenant |
| Impact Assessment: | His appointment was widely well received in Washington as he is seen as politically 'middle of the road' while having a strong track record on budgetary issues. Has not won many friends in Tel Aviv with his criticism of Israel's increasing political isolation from the Arab world. Panetta's rebuke, directed at Benjamin Netanyahu, was particularly stinging as it was seen as 'Whitehouse approved'. |
| Of Note: | Lauded for overseeing the operation that ultimately led to the death of Osama Bin Laden, while at the CIA, he oversaw a dramatic increase in the use of drones for both reconnaissance and precision strike operations. |
The Elephant in the Room
Rather than driving through necessary budget cuts the failure of the ‘Super Committee’ has turned Sequestration into a political football and arguably the largest threat to US military interests since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
What is Sequestration?
The Sequester is a severe automatic spending cut-trigger which was introduced as a ‘sword of damocles’ to encourage cross-party compromise in agreeing budget cuts to reduce US national debt.
The mechanism, if actioned, would lead to $1.2 trillion of cuts between 2013 and 2021 and is particularly brutal with respect to defence and security spending, which would suffer broadly half of all cuts. In real terms, defence spending, under the Sequester, would be expected to decline by between 8.5% and 10% between 2013 and 2021.
Who were the Super Committee and why did they fail?
The Super Committee was a bipartisan panel of 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans, split between Congress and the Senate and imbued with unprecedented powers by both houses to drive through a compromise on spending cuts and tax.
In retrospect, despite needing only seven member approval to issue a report, their failure is hardly surprising, given that both teams have to answer to their chambers and their parties, both of which have shown very little appetite for compromise following the mid-terms.
Furthermore, the threat of sequestration becoming a reality is perceived as far more severe for the Republicans given their strong support in military and defence-dependent states and their position on national security.
Indeed, the Home Armed Services Chairman, Buck McKeon (Republican, California) has been joined by several major Republican names in pushing for the Sequester to be rebalanced to meaningfully reduce its impact on defence spending, a call that has fallen on deaf ears at the Whitehouse, where President Obama has threatened to veto any legal attempt to re-cut the make-up of the Sequester.
What Now?
The US Government still has almost a year to find a solution before the sequester would take effect, although without the super committees’ special powers to avoid filibusters and extended debate, a resolution is hardly more likely, particularly as some Democrats see the threat of the Sequester as an ideal negotiating chip to push for the scaling back of the Bush tax cuts when they come up for renewal shortly before the Sequester would be due to start cutting into US Military muscle.
None the less, the Sequester is widely viewed as unlikely to happen, at least in its current form, simply because any suggestion that the Obama White House is betraying the military would be politically highly damaging ahead of the upcoming Presidential Election, a topic the GOP candidates are already warming to. It can be seen as telling that Leon Panetta, the US Secretary of Defence, is widely expected to submit a 2013 DoD base budget proposal to Congress in February that does not include the effect of the Sequester. Expect continued manoeuvring and another can kicked down the road.
