After ten years of war and expanded spending, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta outlined a series of military budget cuts for the next decade totaling $487 billion. Among these cost-saving measures are limiting pay raises for troops, increasing health insurance fees for military retirees, and closing bases in the U.S. These proposed cuts would be in addition to a previously established drawdown of troops and army personnel over the next five years.

Congress and Franklin Roosevelt's administration passed the Two-Ocean Navy Act in 1940, during World War II. Since then, the nation’s domestic military defense has been based on a simultaneous naval defense on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. But with the announcement Thursday of an eight percent decrease in U.S. military spending, there was also the tacit understanding that naval fleets will be redirected to the Pacific Ocean to act as a buffer between China and the United States West Coast.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is expected to announce plans this week to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the Pentagon's budget. The cuts, precipitated by both the United States' fiscal situation and a deal passed to raise the debt ceiling last summer, will shrink the military so it will no longer be able to sustain two ground wars at once. The Pentagon will trim about $450 billion, or about 8 percent of its budget. However, it may be forced to cut an additional $500 billion if lawmakers on Capitol Hill go through with deeper reductions. Defense hawks say cutting $1 trillion from the Pentagon's budget would have a deleterious impact on national security.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is considering drastic cuts in military spending, including slashing retirement benefits and a round of base closings. Panetta has been ordered to cut more than $450 billion of the Pentagon budget over the next decade and has been under intense political pressure to make the cuts. The yearly defense budget has doubled since the 9/11 attacks. Panetta said it is possible to reshape the military in order to reduce the budget while still defending national interests.

The White House is planning to boost its military presence in the Middle East when the final troops leave Iraq at December's end. The new plan comes in light of the Iraqi government's refusal to allow American forces to remain in the country after the previously agreed-upon deadline, which goes into effect at year's end. The additional combat units would be stationed in Kuwait, and the U.S. views them as a hedge for stability in the event of a collapse in security in Iraq or a move of aggression by Iran.

The Congressional "super committee," put in charge of finding $1.2 trillion to cut from the deficit, have mostly been a top secret committee that have shared very little about their meetings. As the super committee continues to find cuts in the deficit, a number of economic indicators are set to be released this week, including new home sales and GDP figures. Also on the agenda for this week, the Pentagon is set to release a report on the role of women soldiers in the military and whether or not they should be allowed to serve in combat roles. And after President Obama's announcement that all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year, there could be some fallout, especially among Republicans, on Capitol Hill.

The United States military is increasingly relying upon remotely piloted drones to carry out tactical missions in the war in Afghanistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan and Yemen, are also using drones in battle more often. A drone killed the American-born, Yemen-based al-Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki last month, and before that the United States used them to gather intelligence on Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound. With the increasing prevelance of drones, and the fact that they have killed both militants and civilians, some people are worried that a dangerous global drone arms race may be beginning.

Law enforcement officials accused a 26-year-old man from a town west of Boston of plotting to blow up the Pentagon and the Capitol Building with a remote-controlled aircraft fitted with explosives. Officials said Rezwan Ferdaus, who has a physics degree from Northeastern University, has also provided resources to Al Qaida to aid in attacks on American soldiers overseas.

An influential Pentagon panel is eyeing the most radical overhaul of military retirement benefits in 50 years. In its plan the Defense Business Board proposes doing away with the traditional pension program for any members serving 20 years, and replacing it with a 401(k)-style account with government contributions. The DBB says the current pension system is unaffordable and, if the new plan were implemented, it would save the Pentagon a quarter of a trillion dollars over twenty years.

Leon Panetta began his term as defense secretary on July 1, 2011. In the less than two weeks since, he's already visited Iraq and Afghanistan and set a new tone — and agenda — for the Pentagon. Though he was friendly with his predecessor, Robert Gates, Panetta has not been shy about publicly changing the goals for America's two wars. 

The Pentagon has worked to streamline how the United States would engage in cyber warfare and to define the rules of cyberwar. At the same time, there is talk about how to protect the U.S. from cyber attack. Melissa Hathaway, president of Hathaway Global Strategies and former acting senior director for cyberspace at the National Security Council is familiar with this conversation. She looks deeper into what the rules of engagement are and how to protect a country from attack.

The Pentagon has said a cyber attack coming from another country can be interpreted as an act of war and that the U.S. might respond with military action, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. Unclassified portions of the new strategy are expected to be published next month. Siobhan Gorman, Intelligence Correspondent at the Wall Street Journal reported the story. She explains the challenges in this new policy and how you apply a policy of deterrence in cyber space.

Armed drones will soon fly in Libya in order to help enforce the no-fly zone in place there, the White House announced last week. Drones have been a controversial military weapon over the past few years, and a new study by the British Defense Ministry, believes new technologies, such as drones, may mean we resort to military conflict much sooner and easier than before. Are drones really a useful tool in military conflict or do they just serve to escalate the situation? 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor Donald Rumsefld are being accused of turning a blind eye to sexual harassment charges against women in the military, and they are now being sued. Seventeen current and former members of the military claim that this behavior by the Pentagon led to violence against women being tolerated. This meant that their Constitutional rights were violated. Jesse Ellison, writer and editor for Newsweek, and the author of blog Equality Myth, has the details of this lawsuit.

The audience at Sidney Harman Hall in Washington, D.C. usually buys tickets for Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde. But today’s performance — and the audience in line to see it — is completely different. In 2009, London’s Tricycle Theater performed “The Great Game: Afghanistan,” a seven-hour series of twelve plays commissioned by the theater’s director, Nicholas Kent. Last October, the Pentagon requested that Kent bring the play to Washington for two special performances. "The Great Game: Afghanistan" opens today for an audience that includes Pentagon staff, Afghan war veterans and President Obama’s advisers on Afghanistan

Today the Senate holds a procedural vote on whether a sweeping defense appropriations bill — which allocates money for conflicts overseas as well as program cuts at home — makes it to the floor. As any Lady Gaga fan likely knows, this morning, the legislation's most visible component is a proposed repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Gaga has been calling for a repeal of the policy on her Twitter account and elsewhere, and traveled to Maine yesterday to speak at a rally organized by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

Why Maine? Maine's Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins (as well as Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown) could play an important role in allowing the bill to move forward.

A federal judge in California overturned the 17 year old policy that affects the ability of gay men and lesbians to serve in the military late on Thursday. Judge Virginia A. Phillips ruled the policy known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" unconstitutional, saying the rule violates the rights of gay people and has a "direct and deleterious effect" on the military. Don't Ask, Don't Tell bars gay people in the armed services from disclosing their sexual orientations.

Judge Phillips said she would issue an injunction barring the government from enforcing the rule. Legal observers expect the decision to be stayed pending an appeal.

92,000 cryptic reports that offer an hour-by-hour, and sometimes a minute-by-minute, look at the U.S. Army’s actions in Afghanistan were leaked this Sunday by WikiLeaks, a European news organization devoted to uncovering secrets of all kinds. The documents were shared with The Guardian, The New York Times, and Der Spiegel weeks ago, and made public in those papers, and on the Internet, on Sunday.

John Burns of The New York Times set up a very disturbing notion of media dynamics in the wake of the Rolling Stone demise of Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Clearly Burns believes that McChrystal was a real asset in the Afghan military campaign and is being sacrificed because of the Michael Hastings story in Rolling Stone. Burns seems to think that Hastings took nuanced moments to create a portrait of military commanders contemptuous of their civilian colleagues. The piece challenged the principle of civilian control of the U.S. Military. Burns believes the piece may have ended a longstanding relationship between journalists and military leaders as a channel for much needed information over time. By taking what Burns seemed to suggest were “off-the-record” moments and using them to support the Rolling Stone “Runaway General” premise, Hastings has made it difficult for reporters to get the real story of what is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq or at the Pentagon generally, from here on out.

The Pentagon has created new rules governing the military's interaction with the media, following Gen. Stanley McChrystal's loose-lipped appearance in Rolling Stone. Yesterday, for the first time since the controversial new rules were announced, Defense Secretary Robert Gates faced the press.