BUDGET WARS

The strategy foresees some 487 billion U.S. dollars of defense spending reduction in ten years. However, a Congressional "supercommittee" failed to reach a compromise on how to cut 1.2 trillion dollars in spending over the next ten years, meaning if Congress can't find a solution this year, a sequestration method would be triggered, splitting the cuts evenly between civilian and military spending.

Panetta has warned the Department of Defense would face "devastating, automatic, across-the-board cuts that will tear a seam in the nation's defense," should the sequestration take place.

Although Obama urged Congress to reduce the deficit in accordance with the Budget Control Act passed last year, the new strategy didn't mention how this would affect the military, should it come to pass.

Travis Sharp, Bacevich fellow at the CNAS, was critical of Obama's strategy.

"The Obama administration's new strategic guidance assumes that the Department of Defense will absorb 487 billion in cuts to its budget over the next decade. Yet that assumption does not match the current law of the land, sequestration," Sharp said.

He said if sequestration occurs, the Pentagon "will not be able to execute this new guidance." That would further reduce capabilities that provide insurance against uncertainty while preserving capabilities that protect against the most pressing threats facing the nation.

"The new guidance seems to identify ground forces and nuclear weapons as two 'insurance' capabilities that the Department of Defense might cut further if Congress doesn't undo sequestration," Sharp said.