year veteran of the national security establishment when President George W. Bush summoned him to assume command of a demoralized and embattled Pentagon in late 2006. He inherited incoherent spending priorities, a broken procurement process and two disastrously mismanaged wars. Mr. Gates left office with a well-earned reputation for having met these challenges smartly and successfully, writes The New York Times in its editorial. Excerpts: The challenge for Mr. Gates's successor, Leon Panetta, is not just to build on that record but to go much further. He will need to press for more reforms to a military budget that accounts for roughly 50 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending. This can and must be done without endangering America's vital interests. Mr. Panetta has the right credentials to do it. He made his name as a budget-cutter in Congress and in the Clinton White House and as a foreign policy moderate respected by both parties. Most recently, he ran the Central Intelligence Agency for President Obama. Most of Mr. Gates's success in reordering the Pentagon's spending priorities has come from shifting money from cold-war-inspired programs that are no longer justified, like the F-22 fighter, to urgently needed new ones, like mine-resistant troop vehicles. But when this year's fiscal crunch demanded real spending cuts, Mr. Gates resisted. Mr. Panetta must deliver the $400 billion in further savings (over the next 12 years) that President Obama has already called for and find ways to cut even further. In a time of ongoing wars and other dangers, reductions cannot safely be applied across the board. They need to reflect a realistic reassessment of America's global priorities and strategies. Those are not matters for the Pentagon to decide on its own. But Mr. Panetta needs to play an active role in making sure military leaders are heard in the White House and in seeing that the president's decisions are faithfully carried out. He must also stretch American tax dollars by increasing pressure on NATO and other allies to contribute more effectively to future military operations. And he must help the Obama administration devise a safe and honorable exit strategy from Afghanistan. American interests, not budget pressures, should drive that strategy. And an exit from Afghanistan will not mean an exit from global military responsibilities. The United States must be ready to intervene unexpectedly, in places like Libya, and cannot afford to ignore China's military ambitions and prowess. As Robert Gates so often stressed, the Pentagon's focus must be on fighting today's wars and tomorrow's, not yesterday's, and fighting them alongside allies capable of doing their share for the common defense. __
