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A key 2024 presidential campaign pledge by Donald Trump was to rebuild the military after years of neglect under President Joe Biden.
Trump has shown mixed results in delivering on this pledge. Yes, Trump rightly moved quickly to authorize the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter. He has also rightly abandoned Biden’s hesitancy and bolstered U.S. nuclear forces against China’s surging nuclear weapons stockpile and Vladimir Putin’s attempts at nuclear blackmail.
But the data tell a less auspicious tale. Trump’s 2026 defense budget raises spending only nominally above the 2025 budget, with percentage-of-GDP defense spending set to fall to around 2.8%. This undermines Trump’s otherwise righteous clamor for NATO allies to spend at least 3.5%-of-GDP on defense. And while the 2026 budget carries pay hikes for service members, it risks crowding out procurement of weapons systems and munitions that would be crucial in any future war with China.
WHY DOES TRUMP TOLERATE VIKTOR ORBAN’S MANY INSULTS?
The China war concern should loom large. Chairman Xi Jinping has told his People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Many analysts believe he will order an invasion by 2030.
Trump is faring better on waste elimination at the Pentagon. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is cutting DEI programs and other non-military related expenditures, improving physical standards and emphasizing combat readiness. But the Department of War still tolerates too much waste. It also continues to fail to impose adequate costs on contractors when they fail to meet deadlines or deliver products with problems. Lockheed Martin’s performance with the F-35 fighter jet and the Electric Boat Company’s performance with attack submarines offer two such examples. The defense industrial complex deserves incentives for innovation and rewards for success. But Trump must bring down the hammer where taxpayers are left on the hook for delayed or problematic contract deliveries.
Better is the Trump administration’s reduction of bureaucracy and red tape, which prevents smaller, more nimble and innovative firms from securing defense contracts. This has led the Pentagon to bolster links with defense contractors that offer more figurative and literal bang for their buck.
Anduril, for example, has secured new contracts by offering hyper-scalable drone and missile capabilities. It also beat out larger competitors to win the Combat Collaborative Aircraft (CCA) contract. This competition within the defense industrial base delivers better returns on investment and forces greater competition on the traditional contractor behemoths of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, RTX/Raytheon, and General Dynamics.
Hegseth’s broader record is mixed, however. While his focus on combat readiness and efficiency is praiseworthy, these interests are ill-served by a defense strategy that prioritizes domestic troop deployments and the threat of Latin American drug cartels over those posed by China. Hegseth should also challenge Congress to get rid of the useless Littoral Combat Ships and close unnecessary military bases.
But Hegseth’s most notable failure was his transmission of classified information on the Signal messaging app. The former Fox News host has also undermined the First Amendment and the MAGA interest in “draining the DC swamp” by restricting media access at the Pentagon. And although he is right to attack politicization within and the bloated nature of the general officer ranks, Hegseth’s public showboating undermines his credibility with military officers. Similarly, his removal of numerous general officers for unclear reasons also risks fostering a reverse politicization in which military leaders tell Hegseth and Trump what they want to hear rather than offer their best military advice. To understand why this is a dangerous road to go down, look at the failures of Putin and his armed forces in Ukraine.
Of course, we’re only nine months into the Trump administration. The real measure of success when it comes to bolstering the military will rest on what the administration does next.
To that end, one structural challenge Trump must confront is the continuing weakness of the defense industrial base. A particular concern is the grave shortage in air defense munitions. The military expended perhaps 15%-20% of its THAAD ballistic missile interceptors in its defense of Israel against Iranian attacks earlier this year, for example. Other interceptors were heavily depleted by operations against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
This is a big problem. After all, China possesses thousands of advanced ballistic and cruise missiles. In turn, a shortage of air defense munitions will greatly increase the vulnerability of U.S. bases on Guam and Okinawa, and U.S. Navy warships in any war with China.
The shipbuilding industrial base presents another major challenge. This is particularly problematic in terms of submarines. Russia is helping China improve its ability to hunt American submarines, but submarine warfare remains one of the few domains in which the U.S. retains an outsize advantage. And in a war with Taiwan, any Chinese victory would depend significantly on China’s ability to land troops and equipment on Taiwan’s beachheads in short order. The more American submarines in and around the Taiwan Strait, the more likely it is that China would be defeated. Boosted submarine production is also needed in order to fulfill the AUKUS agreement to develop nuclear submarines for Australia.
The surface fleet is also too small. While the Trump administration is attempting to bolster the ship and submarine building industrial base, its present efforts are inadequate. Because of the urgency of getting more ships to sea more quickly, Trump should work with Congress to allow close allies such as South Korea (which excels at rapidly building excellent warships on budget) to build warships for the U.S. in their own ports. Losing the most consequential war since 1945 is too expensive a price to pay for building everything in America.
Finally, Trump should adopt a rare earth minerals version of his “Operation War Speed” rush to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. While his recent deals with Australia and Japan move the U.S. in the right direction, Trump should use his emergency national security authority and generous subsidies to rush the development of rare earth mineral mining on U.S. soil. These minerals are crucial components in constructing numerous weapons systems. China is attempting to leverage its current monopoly on these minerals to pressure the U.S. to make concessions that run counter to U.S. interests.
PUTIN ATTEMPTS TO BLACKMAIL TRUMP WITH NUCLEAR MISSILE TEST
Put simply, Trump must be bolder and more prudent if the military is to restore its prior strength. That means investing in what works well rather than what, like the Golden Dome boondoggle, looks good.
But the president should also remember that America can’t go it alone. While Trump is absolutely right to demand that allies do their fair share in support of our mutual defense, his occasional flippancy risks jeopardizing allied willingness to fight with America in the likely approaching China war. That matters because the more American allies that China must contemplate confronting in its plans for aggression, the less likely it will be to pursue those plans. In much the same way, the clarity and potency with which the U.S. military appears ready for war, the less likely it is that China will risk war.
As the Roman military scholar Vegetius observed, “let him who desires peace prepare for war.” It is not enough to change the name of the Defense Department to the Department of War. Trump and Hegseth must fund and orient a military truly prepared for war.
