March 03, 2017
Why Trump’s Military Buildup Is Not As Big As He Promises
Earlier this week the Trump administration announced it would seek a $54 billion increase in defense spending in an effort to make good on the president’s campaign promise to restore American military dominance. This additional funding is sorely needed to repair military readiness and fund critical modernization initiatives, both of which have suffered under spending cuts imposed by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011.
Yet this defense buildup, while necessary, is hardly the “historic” increase Trump had claimed.
Administration officials touted their request as a 10% increase above BCA spending limits. While true, this is a misleading baseline. Trump’s request of $603 billion for fiscal year 2018 is only 3% above the Obama administration’s fiscal year 2017 request of $583 billion. And Trump’s request is significantly below the $640 billion that Sen. John McCain and Rep. Mac Thornberry have argued is necessary. The Trump budget is also only modestly higher than what Congress authorized for the Defense Department last year.
Read the full article at Fortune.
More from CNAS
-
Commentary
Defense / Transatlantic Security
When Defense Becomes Destruction: Austria-Hungary’s Mistake and Ukraine’s RiskThis article was originally posted on War on the Rocks. The southeastern Polish city of Przemyśl, with its elegant 19th century Habsburg-era train station, remains one of the ...
By Franz-Stefan Gady
-
Commentary
Defense / Transatlantic Security
Ukraine’s Catch-22 MomentThis article was originally published in the Financial Times. In Joseph Heller’s wartime classic, Catch-22, the protagonist Yossarian seeks out the US army surgeon Doc Daneeka...
By Franz-Stefan Gady
-
CNAS Insights | Budgetary Own Goals Undermine “Speed and Volume”
Commentary
On November 7, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth laid out a plan to overhaul the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) acquisition system. Placing an emphasis on delivering new capa...
By Philip Sheers, Carlton Haelig & Stacie Pettyjohn
-
Drones: Who Is Making the New Weapons of War?
Podcast
From Ukraine and Russia to Gaza and Sudan, drones have become a key weapon of war. Which companies are making them, and profiting from this rapidly expanding but controversial...
By Stacie Pettyjohn
