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The lack of flexibility is an enormous problem, said Mark Gunzinger, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. “When you move money around like that, it is very difficult to do long-term strategic plans, or even implement existing plans when you’re not sure what the funding levels are going to be,” he said.

Gates plans to take some of those monies and shift them to other needs — but some lawmakers and analysts say the secretary might lose a good chunk as Congress grapples with paring the federal deficit. “I don’t expect any major surprises” next week when the next budget plan is made public, said Jim Thomas of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “I don’t think there will be more immediate program cuts,” Thomas added Sunday during “This Week in Defense News.”

But F/A-18 workers were spared. “The aircraft has been a good insurance policy for the Navy,” said Todd Harrison, a defense analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “The F/A-18 will be in demand for as long as there are problems with the F-35 program. And if you look how that program has gone over the last several years, there’s no telling how long that will be.”

Egypt has long been a valued customer of the U.S. defense industry. But at least in the near term, the dynamic isn’t likely to change any more than for other business in the nation, which has largely ground to a halt because of the ongoing unrest, said Eric Edelman, a distinguished fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “I would expect that everything would, for the moment, stay on course. There’s no reason [for it] not to,” said Edelman, a former Pentagon undersecretary for policy. He added that recent discussions between Egyptian military leaders and Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen were probably to “reassure” the Egyptian military.

Ambassador Eric S. Edelman, Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has been named a Knight of the French National Order of the Legion of Honour for special contributions to the advancement of the defense relationship between France and the United States during his career in the U.S. Foreign Service and as the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. The order is the highest decoration in France and the first order of merit established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.

The drop from the Pentagon’s fiscal 2011 war-spending request of $159 billion reflects President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce troop levels in the war zones and stricter White House rules on what costs can be included in the war budget, said the officials, who asked that their names not be used because the budget has not been formally released. “That’s the largest year-to-year decrease in total war funding since” the Afghan war began, Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst for the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, said in an e-mail. “The bigger question here is what does this indicate in terms of strategy?” Harrison said. “With a year-to-year reduction in war funding of this magnitude, it appears to signal an intent to continue the withdrawal from Iraq and to begin reducing troops levels in Afghanistan during fiscal 2012,” he said.