BEIJING - The Pentagon is planning its first defense budget cutbacks since the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, according to a proposed defense budget of $613.9 billion for fiscal year 2013 sent to Congress on Monday by US President Barack Obama.

The total is nearly $32 billion less than this year's budget, and the cuts reflect the impact of the country's economic downturn, experts said.

According to the Pentagon, the proposed spending program includes $525.4 billion to fund base defense programs and $88.5 billion to support overseas contingency operations, primarily in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon is redoubling efforts to "make better use of the taxpayer's defense dollar" and meet its fiscal responsibilities, said US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Panetta said the proposed budget plan represents "a historic shift to the future" and suggests "a strategic point" after a decade of war.

Niu Jun, a professor of international politics at Peking University, told China Daily that the planned 2013 budget was based on Washington's strategic priorities and an overall evaluation of the future situation.

"As Obama fulfilled his promise to withdraw US troops from both regions, the budget should also shift from a wartime to non-wartime mode," Niu said.

Despite the proposed defense spending cuts, the US is taking steps to continue ensuring its strategic advantage and control in certain regions where it believes lie great uncertainty, critics said.

According to the budget plan, rebalancing toward the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East will require investment in fiscal year 2013, including funding to develop a next-generation bomber and increasing the cruise missile capacity of future Virginia-class submarines.

About $1.8 billion will also be spent to upgrade tactical sensors and other electronic warfare equipment.

"The budget is not making substantial cuts in spending concerning the Asia-Pacific region," said Niu.

Meanwhile, the White House on Monday forecast an alarmingly high deficit in the current fiscal year before it scales back to less than $1 trillion in the 2013 fiscal year, according to the administration's 2013 fiscal year budget proposal sent to Congress.

The White House projected the US federal government's budget deficit would reach around $1.33 trillion in the 2012 fiscal year ending in September, fresh evidence of the mounting budgetary pressure facing the world's largest economy.

The estimated amount is equal to 8.5 percent of the nation's GDP and higher than the $1.1 trillion predicted last month by the US Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan budgetary and economic research agency.

This would mark the fourth fiscal year in a row that the US federal government's budget deficit exceeds the $1 trillion threshold, with the nation's total public debt surpassing $5 trillion.

The federal government's deficit is expected to edge down to $901 billion in the 2013 fiscal year, or 5.5 percent of the nation's economic output.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

China Daily