The US will cut almost 100,000 troops as part of its plans for a "smaller, leaner" military, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has announced. Unveiling a restructure of the armed forces, Mr Panetta said the US would boost special forces and retain the ability to defeat "any enemy on land", BBC News informs.

The Pentagon is facing cuts of $487bn (£310bn) over the next 10 years.

In five years, the Army will drop from a peak of 570,000 to 490,000, and the marines be cut by 20,000, to 182,000.

The military's budget would rise, albeit at a slower rate, to $567bn by 2017.

Mr Panetta said the US would continue buying F-35 jets, but would slow its purchase of the stealth fighter planes.

Leon Panetta admitted this had been tough work, but he called this a strategic turning point, arguing the changes were necessary to meet 21st century challenges.

A decade of war has seen ballooning defence budgets. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, it makes sense to take stock and see how best to reconfigure what is still the world's most formidable military.

In a way, what Mr Panetta is doing is what one of his more controversial predecessors, Donald Rumsfeld, wanted to do ten years ago: create an agile, highly versatile but substantially smaller military better suited to taking on a variety of threats.

By presenting a detailed plan to reduce future spending by almost half a trillion dollars over the next ten years, Mr Panetta hopes to avoid another $600bn of arbitrary cuts which could be imposed on his department should Congress fail to reach a deal on deficit reduction by the end of the year.
Focus would shift from large-scale conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to areas of key national interest, he said, including a strengthened commitment in Asia.

US special forces that were previously committed to Iraq will now be used around the globe, Mr Panetta said.