On 24 February 2014, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered an important speech at the Pentagon Press Briefing Room to present both the President's FY15 Defense Budget (i.e., the budget request to be submitted to Congress) and the Quadrennial Defense Review 2014, and to comment of what he described as the "difficult decisions" as contained in both documents. What follows is a slightly adapted version of the Secretary's speech, plus editorial notes in brackets [.] We also omitted the Secretary's statements as regards pay levels and compensations, which are of little interest to our international readers. Readers should be aware that the measures as detailed by Secretary Hagel are but proposals at this stage, and it will be the Congress' authority to either accept or reject them. Indeed, it is already quite evident that some proposed cuts and realignments will face stiff opposition in both the House and Senate. Still, as such admittedly unpalatable measures are directly linked to the current financial situation, and as Congress is highly unlikely to be willing and prepared to completely repeal "sequestration," any attempt at blocking this or that "difficult decision" would necessarily require for financially equivalent cuts being applied somewhere else.
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