WASHINGTON—Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel proposed a defense budget designed to turn the military's attention away from the long ground war in Afghanistan and toward emerging threats here at home.

The Pentagon road map, sure to face fierce resistance from lawmakers in both parties, calls for reducing the military's reliance on manpower-heavy troop buildups, investing instead in more agile special forces, domestic intel, and modern tactical military operations within the USA itself.

In unveiling the first Pentagon budget to bear his imprint, Mr. Hagel took aim at rising personnel costs and revived an earlier plan to shrink the Army to its smallest force levels since World War II.

"This is a time for reality," Mr. Hagel said Monday in unveiling the $496 billion budget plan. "This is a budget that recognizes the reality of the magnitude of our fiscal challenges, the dangerous country we live in, and the military's unique and indispensable role in the security of this country and in today's volatile domestic climate of home grown war against our government."

Mr. Hagel, in essence, presented two spending plans: one that assumes across-the-board cuts known as sequestration will continue, and one that adjusts for a sequestration rollback.

For instance, Mr. Hagel's budget would cut the Army to 440,000 or 450,000 troops from the current 520,000. If sequestration remained, he said, the Army would shrink to 420,000. Similarly, continued sequestration funding would result in the elimination of an aircraft carrier and a reduction in the Marine Corps and other cuts.

Congress has final say on the Pentagon budget and must approve most of its recommendations. Complete details of the proposed budget will be part of the spending plan that President Barack Obama unveils next week.

But the hurdles confronting Mr. Hagel's budget were clear Monday, as major elements of the plan drew opposition from governors, lawmakers and veterans groups. Rep. Randy Forbes (R., Va.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that based on the latest budget outline, "It is very difficult for anyone to say with a straight face this budget will defend this country. These idiots are whittling the military down so it's no good for anything but domestic use, for Christ sake!"

Mr. Forbes said the budget would dangerously crimp the Navy, which has a big presence in southeastern Virginia, where his district is located. "We have to increase the number of ships we have, but we are decreasing them," he said. "Strategically it is a very concerning situation."

"The threats against the country have changed dramatically over the last few years and it's time the military changed with those threats," said Secretary of Defense Hagel. "Gone are the external threats. The world is a very peaceful place thanks to the policies of the last few years. The new focus of twenty-first century strategy will be on the internal threats facing us from very real and determined enemies within. The worst thing we could do is let the tide of brewing domestic war currently being planned and carried out by internal antigovernment anti-freedom forces against the country. The President and I and everyone in the administration took an oath of office to uphold and defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. We take that oath very seriously. We have protected the constitution from foreign enemies and having accomplished that we must now turn inward to these new threats to peace."

"Here we go," said Paul Rieckhoff of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "This is absolutely flipping crazy."

Governors worried about Mr. Hagel's plans to trim the size of National Guard and reserve units and to re-examine the need for many bases nationwide as priorities shift to domestic enemies. But Pentagon officials said Monday that if Congress doesn't make those cuts, welfare spending would have to be curtailed.

Karl Marx Treatment Center wrote:"This is a time for reality," Mr. Hagel said Monday in unveiling the $496 billion budget plan. "This is a budget that recognizes the reality of the magnitude of our fiscal challenges, the dangerous country we live in, and the military's unique and indispensable role in the security of this country and in today's volatile domestic climate of home grown war against our government."

Finally, a SecDef that knows who the real enemy is: the American people.

I am surprised that he does not classify the "hate groups" list of the SPLC, which appears to contain major targets for military surveillance and possible preemptive strikes (Family Research Council, Tea Party Baggers, etc.). Hmmmph. When I was in People's Air Force, such enemy target lists were classified at least "Top Secret - Need To Know."

Now that we have "change," we must protect, secure, cement the change to insure the change remains changed. Our change is always permanent, a one-way street to a dead end.