Quotes From Sec. Panetta on New Military Strategy: 'Focus on Presence, Deterrence in Asia-Pacific'

In remarks given at the Pentagon moments ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta discussed future military force and strategy. Below are some notable quotations from the comments:

• "First the U.S. joint force will be smaller and it will be leaner, but its great strength will be that it is more agile, flexible innovative and technically advanced. That is the horse for the future."
• "Second, as we move towards this new joint forces, we are rebalancing our global posture and presence, emphasizing the Pacific and Middle East- these are the areas where we see the greateest challegens for the future."
• "The U.S. military will increase its
  

  institutional weight and focus on enhanced presence, power projection, and deterrence in Asia-Pacific."

• "But make no mistake -- we will have the capability to confront and defeat more than one adversary at a time."
• "The Army and the Marine Corps will no longer need to be sized to support large scale, long term stability operations that dominated military priorities and force generation over the past decade."
• "There is no question that we have to make some tradeoffs, and that we will be taking on some level of additional but acceptable risk in the budget plan we release next month. These were not easy choices."