Foreign Policy In Focus

The Institute for Policy Studies puts the savings from overseas base closures as high as $184 billion over 10 years.

Emira Woods from Washington-based Foreign Policy in Focus says actual change though is more important than visits and speeches.

"Wonderful words, but very much unfulfilled," said Woods.  "Those words have to be lived in terms of U.S. foreign policy and we are still waiting for them to be realized."

But Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies, said that "these are only-in-Washington cuts," as reductions are primarily to money that the Pentagon planned for expansion.

"While powerful members of Congress will be crying that the Obama administration is gutting defense, in fact the administration has barely begun the process of reversing the buildup and shifting the money to higher priorities," she said.