America’s Declining Military
Biden’s budget widens a window of vulnerability for at least a decade.
By The Editorial Board
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has alerted most Americans that the world is becoming a far more dangerous place. Count it as a befuddling failure, then, that the military budget President Biden unveiled Monday doesn’t meet the moment. It treads water amid inflation and invites autocrats to exploit a widening window of American weakness.
The Pentagon is seeking $773 billion for fiscal 2023, and spending on national defense reaches $813 billion when other accounts are included. This sounds large, and Mr. Biden is pitching it as a big increase over his request last year. But even defense officials say the Pentagon would see only a 1.5% real increase over last year’s funding after inflation. Defense spending will still be about 3.1% of the economy, close to post-Cold War lows and heading lower over the next decade. (See the nearby chart.)
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The Administration calls China a “pacing challenge,” and Russia an “acute threat,” and it touts $130 billion for research and development, including crucial efforts on artificial intelligence and 5G applications. Also welcome is $24.7 billion for missile defense, including a badly needed $892 million to defend Guam from Chinese missiles, and $27.6 billion for space capabilities. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative would get $6.1 billion.
But the overall budget picture is that the Biden team is betting on weapons that don’t yet exist for a war they hope arrives on someone else’s watch. They want to save money now in order to spend on what they say will be a more modern force in a decade.
To this end, the 298-ship U.S. Navy would buy only nine ships next year while retiring 24. The fleet would shrink to 280 ships in 2027, even as the Navy says it needs a fleet of 500 to defeat China in a conflict. That trend won’t impress Xi Jinping as he eyes Taiwan.
As for the Army, Mr. Putin’s revanchism will require more forward deployments by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The alliance will need more troops and hardware in the Baltics, and much of this will have to come from the land branch. But the Army is seeking $177.5 billion, barely up from $174.7 billion last year and a cut after inflation.
End strength would fall to 473,000 from the 485,000 authorized last year. The Army shrugs because it hasn’t been able to fill all its spots in a hot labor market. This may relieve a recruiting headache for some general, but it won’t reduce the threats the Army may have to address in multiple theaters.
The Air Force “is now the smallest, oldest, and least ready it has ever been in its 75-year history,” as the Air Force Association put it this week, but the Pentagon plans to cut its buy of F-35 fighter jets this year.
The Air Force wants 33 F-35s, down from 48 requested in years past, which was still too few to upgrade the fleet in any reasonable time. In a future conflict, the U.S. will need these advanced aircraft to survive against sophisticated air defenses. Reducing purchases will put pressure on the supply chain and raise the per copy cost of the aircraft.
These hard-power priorities were squeezed in order to request, with great self-congratulation, $3.1 billion for climate change. This is consistent with a White House that wants to create a Civilian Climate Corps with more personnel than the Marine Corps. This $3.1 billion could be spent on weapons. The Navy’s ship retirements save $3.6 billion over five years, and the country needs that offensive power more than it does electric vans.
A couple more questionable decisions: The Administration appears to have canceled a program to develop a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, precisely the kind of weapon designed to deter Mr. Putin from using tactical nukes in Europe. The Air Force also wants to retire much of its aging airborne warning and control fleet (Awacs) without a replacement in hand, but this capability is essential to air dominance in any conflict.
A decades-long decline in American military power is an under-appreciated reason the world’s authoritarians are on the march. We never thought we’d write this given its penchant for military pork, but Congress can do a lot to improve the Pentagon request, which should be a baseline. Republicans are suggesting the military budget needs to grow 5% in real terms. Congress should set a goal of returning the U.S. to its deterrent strength of the Cold War years, when defense spending was 5% or more of the economy.
If lawmakers don’t intervene, the U.S. might not be ready for the next war until a decade after we lose it.
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