Panetta Plan for Lean, Agile Military Reflects a Tighter Budget

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With an eye on Asia and a constrained wallet, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta offered a plan to create a “smaller and leaner” military that will be “rapidly deployable and technologically advanced.”

Former President George W. Bush also promised to create an “agile, lethal, readily deployable” military -- until the prolonged ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq required a larger Army and more heavily armored vehicles.