<i>US plans to cut troops, invest in future</i>
The Pentagon on Thursday proposed taking some 100,000 troops off active duty as the debt-ridden United States winds down a decade of war, but vowed new investments to exert power in Asia and the Middle East.
With pressure mounting to balance the US books, President Barack Obama's administration sought a 13 percent cut in Army numbers including pulling back two brigades from Europe as well as retiring older ships and planes.
"We are at a strategic turning point after a decade of war and substantial growth in defence budgets," Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said as he unveiled a preview of the Pentagon's 2013 budget requests.
Panetta vowed to maintain US power in the Middle East and Asia -- where China's growing military has concerned the United States and its allies -- including by modernising submarines and funding a next-generation bomber.
Panetta called for funding to station littoral combat ships in Singapore and patrol craft in Bahrain -- part of the US strategy of forward-deploying its military to strategically placed US allies.
The budget is far from a done deal. Panetta is hoping to ward off calls for steeper cuts backed by some members of his Democratic Party, while Republicans seeking to defeat Obama in November elections have resisted any cuts to the military and instead prefer reductions on social benefits at home.
But Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies, said that "these are only-in-Washington cuts," as reductions are primarily to money that the Pentagon planned for expansion.
Panetta proposed a $613 billion budget for the year starting in October which is nine percent below the 2012 request.
Even with cuts, the US military budget remains far larger than those of other countries. China, which has the world's second largest military budget, said it was devoting 601.1 billion yuan ($91.1 billion) in 2011, although many foreign experts believe that the actual figure is higher.
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