Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Pentagon leaders to find billions of dollars in cuts to military programs.

But the cuts could be less about saving taxpayers money and more about redirecting defense spending to President Donald Trump’s priorities.

Justin Logan, the Cato Institute’s director of defense and foreign policy studies, said the cuts might be more of a “contingency plan” for Hegseth, and there’s no guarantee whatever cuts Pentagon leaders come up with end up taking place.

Senior Pentagon official Robert G. Salesses said in a statement Wednesday that the requested “offsets” would total about $50 billion from next year’s budget. The Washington Post, The New York Times and other outlets are reporting that Hegseth wants senior leaders to identify ways their budgets could be cut by 8% in each of the next five years. The Washington Post cited a Defense Department memo and officials familiar with the matter.

Some areas would reportedly be exempted from cuts, including U.S. southern border security.

Salesses said other Trump priorities include “building the Iron Dome for America, and ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing.”

Hegseth said on social media that Trump gave his department “clear marching orders: revive warrior ethos, rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence. We will refocus our core missions and programs to align with the president’s priorities effectively and efficiently.”

About 13% of the federal budget goes to defense spending. The Defense Department’s budget this year is about $850 billion. Major entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, make up half of government spending.

The government ran a nearly $2 trillion deficit last year on a nearly $7 trillion federal budget, adding to the country’s $36 trillion debt.

Logan said the Trump-endorsed House Republican budget plan would increase defense spending by more than $100 billion a year. “They’re mind-boggling numbers,” he said.

If the review Hegseth ordered results in reductions, they would be the largest defense budget cuts in a decade. It’s something some inside the Pentagon don’t want to do.

And Congress, which holds the power of the purse, might react to proposed defense cuts in an “intensely hostile” way, Logan said.

“I think they’re all going to hate it,” Logan said. “The Republicans are going to hate it, because they love defense spending. And the Democrats are going to hate it, because they hate Trump.”

Unlike the 2013 defense cuts, this approach appears more strategic, Logan said. For example, he said, the Trump administration is favoring the Indo-Pacific Command and the Navy.

“The politics of defense are a pretty fraught subject,” Logan said. “The tendency inside the (Pentagon) is to say there is no fat, there’s only meat and bone. And so, any cuts are going to impact our readiness, are going to impact our war-fighting capability.”

But Logan said these cuts, if they are actual cuts and not just reallocations, would be “a good first start for a country that’s really in trouble fiscally.”

And for Americans who don’t want Social Security or Medicare touched, defense cuts might be viewed as the lesser of two evils.

“I obviously think these entitlement programs are time bombs that are ticking louder and louder as time goes on,” Logan said. “But I think both the American people and their representatives in Congress have shown an unlimited ability to try to kick the can down the road on these things.”

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