WASHINGTON - The US Defense Department is bracing for impending budget cuts that is to take shape in President Barack Obama's budget proposals set to be announced next week, the Pentagon said Friday.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will spend time next week in Congressional testimonies, providing details and answering questions regarding next year's Defense budget, after its scheduled rollout next Monday, said Pentagon Press Secretary George Little.

Little said the Defense budget proposals will have a topline budget request of 525 billion dollars for fiscal year 2013, set to begin this October, with 88.4 billion more for overseas contingency operations, mostly in Afghanistan. This is down from 531 billion and 115 billion for fiscal year 2012.

The budget is based on a strategy that reflects the 487 billion spending cuts the Budget Control Act set for defense spending over the next 10 years. It calls for a smaller military, focused away from future protracted ground campaigns and supporting US national security priorities of the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.

However, the budget request was built without an eye toward an additional half-trillion-dollar spending cut called for in a Budget Control Act "sequestration" provision if Congress cannot agree on an alternative this year, Little noted. Panetta has called the potential effects of those additional cuts "devastating. "

Little said the Pentagon hopes "Congress will stop sequestration from happening."