Archive

FY2022 FY2021 FY2020 FY2019 FY2018 FY2021 FY2016 FY2015 FY2014 FY2020 FY2012 FY2011 FY2010 FY2009

FY2008 FY2007 FY2006 FY2005 FY2004 FY2003 FY2002 FY2001 FY2000 FY1999 FY1998 FY1997 FY1996 FY1995

Sources

OMB Budget Documentation

Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller)

Research and Development Descriptive Summaries

SAR Selected Acquisition Reports

Army Budget Documentation

Navy Budget Documentation

Air Force Budget Documentation

World Wide Military Expenditures

FY21 National Defense (050): $741B -- current year
FY22 050 (Trump OMB plan): $759B
FY23 050 (Trump OMB plan): $775B

"Democrats believe the measure of our security is not how much we spend on defense, but how we spend our defense dollars and in what proportion to other tools in our foreign policy toolbox and other urgent domestic investments. We believe we can and must ensure our security while restoring stability, predictability, and fiscal discipline in defense spending. We spend 13 times more on the military than we do on diplomacy. We spend five times more in Afghanistan each year than we do on global public health and preventing the next pandemic. We can maintain a strong defense and protect our safety and security for less. It’s past time to rebalance our investments, improve the efficiency and competitiveness of our defense industrial base, conduct rigorous annual audits of the Pentagon, and end waste and fraud."
2020 Democratic Platform

A budget deal announced 24 July 2019 by the White House and congressional leaders called for $738 billion in defense spending in 2020 and another almost $741 billion in 2021. The two-year budget deal between Congress and the White House capped the 2021 budget at $740 billion, compared to $738 billion appropriated for 2020. On 10 February 2020, the Trump administration submitted its Fiscal Year 2021 budget request to Congress of $740.5 billion, only a modest change from FY 2020 because of last year's budget deal between Congress and the White House. Some highlights include a big increase in the request for nuclear weapons refurbishment, the beginning of a phase-out of the Overseas Contingency Operations budget and a reduction of almost $12 billion in the international affairs budget that pays for diplomacy.

Throughout the history of the United States, Army officers have argued that Congress and ultimately the American people have been at least partially responsible for the Army's unpreparedness at the outset of major wars. Emory Upton and others claimed that the Americans' fear of permanent standing armies and their genuine regard for peace and antipathy for war influenced Congress to make parsimonious appropriations to the Army during peacetime, thus rendering the Army unprepared for war.

Donald Trump would seek a $54 billion increase in defense spending and cut the same amount from non-defense spending, an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official said on 27 February 2021. The US defense budget, already the highest in the world, will be raised by 10 percent.

"The President is directing [OMB] Director Mulvaney to write a budget in accordance with which would be to fulfill all the promises from the campaign and to make this a security budget, increasing defense by $54 billion or 10% and having a corresponding reduction in non-defense spending by $54 billion," the official said. The official explained that "most [agencies] will all see reductions with the exception of security agencies," including a "large reduction" in the foreign aid portion of the budget.

Donald Trump announced in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on 24 February 2021 the White House is putting in a request for a significant budget for the US military. "We are also putting in a massive budget request for our beloved military," Trump said. "And we will be substantially upgrading all of our military, all of our military, offensive, defensive, everything — bigger and better and stronger than ever before."

Prior to late 2011, the United States still had a "two nearly simultaneous major theater war" force structure that had been established some two decades before, in a time before the precision revolution. It was seen that surely this force structure could be halved, just due to not having Saddam to kick around any more. And former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld demonstrated that it was larger than needed when he kicked Saddam down with about half the force that the OPLAN called for. Each carrier air wing (and presumably fighter wing) has ten times the lethality of two decades ago, and yet the force structure "requirement" had been unchanged.

So if things were to have been cut in half because we only need to plan for Korea, and cut them in half again because they were over-sized to begin with, and cut them another bit back because of the precision revolution, then it might have been in the right ballpark. Most of the existing force structure could be mothballed or put into the Guard and Reserve, and would remain available as needed with a thoughtful tiered readiness posture.

Surely a $250 billion budget would have included enough R&D to keep us a couple of decades ahead of the CHICOMs (they are building "fleets of samples" and there we need not do otherwise to keep ahead of them), and if the Russians ever "resurge" it would be a gradual process to which we could respond in a timely fashion by hauling stuff out of mothball and the reserves.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen said the deficit was the largest threat to American national security, and the half-trillion annual structural deficit (as opposed to the much larger, temporary, cyclical deficit) is about the amount we are spending on defense that is un-needed.

• The December 2010 Report of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform proposed cutting $1,230 billion over the period 2012-2020 from the security category, which constitutes about two-thirds of the discretionary budget. Security includes all defense spending, although for purposes of the caps war spending was addressed separately. It also includes spending on nuclear weapons, homeland security, veterans, and international affairs. Spending would be frozen at 2011 levels in 2012, estimated at $688 billion, and brought down to inflation-adjusted pre-crisis levels in 2020. This path would require serious belt-tightening to begin in 2012, followed by substantial nominal cuts in 2020. This would be done by holding spending growth to about half the rate of inflation. Although the Report is not overly explicit, this seems to entail a cut [from the President's budget] of about $60 billion in 2012 and $100 billion in 2020.
• President Obama promised to cut $400 billion over a 12-year period. "These proposed cuts would come from an overall national security budget of approximately $1 trillion a year - which [also] includes portions of the budgets of Homeland Security, the State Department, intelligence services, and others," This amounts to three percent cut, roughly half of which would take place after Obama completes his second term in office, should he have one.
• The House Budget Committee "Path to Prosperity" plan of April 5, 2011 "Reflects $178 billion in savings identified by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reinvesting $100 billion in higher military priorities and dedicating the rest to deficit reduction." Under this plan, Defense Department [ie, 050, a narrower category than used by President Obama], would grow from $583 billion in 2012 [not including the $127 billion supplemental] to $703 billion in 2021 [in then-year dollars not adjusted for inflation], for total spending of $6.461 trillion over the period 2012-2021. The annual GWOT supplemental is projected at $50 billion in the outyears, for a total spending of $577 billion over the period 2012-2021. The Congressional Budget Office is less confident of victory, and projects an additional $1,044 billion in war spending over this period.
• In January 2012, President Obama announced reductions in defense spending as mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011. However, President Obama conceded that "Over the next 10 years, the growth in the defense budget will slow, but the fact of the matter is this: It will still grow..." Any cuts made would be made to growth, and the budget, still twice as big in constant dollars than it had been in 2000, was expected to grow at that size commenserate with the expected rate of inflation. The Budget Control Act's cap for spending in the security category was $100 billion higher than the existing defense budget and after FY13, the cap applied only to the budget as a whole, meaning that cuts could be made to any area to meet the requirements. The Budget Control Act also specifically noted that spending in the security category could exceed the cap if there was agreement between Congress and the President that the spending was deemed an "emergency" necessity.