Promises, Promises

And whether President Trump knew it or not, his proposed modest increase in defense spending was dead on arrival because it was included in a federal budget that had no chance of being enacted by Congress. Crafted by OMB director Mick Mulvaney, who as a congressman had repeatedly voted to cut defense spending, the budget’s deep slicing of moneys for foreign aid, the State Department, and domestic programs to “offset” the increase in military spending was almost certainly intended to create a budgetary stalemate on the Hill. Stalled, the likely result would be passage of a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded that would cap spending at last year’s level, meaning that even Trump’s small hike in defense expenditures would not happen. And this is precisely what transpired. Unable to pass a new appropriations bill by the end of the fiscal year in September, Congress instead enacted a continuing resolution that runs out on December 8. As a result, the Pentagon and the services are stuck in neutral, unable to start new initiatives or plan ahead given the continuing uncertainty over what resources they will really have.

As irresolute as the White House has been in keeping its promise to rebuild the military, Congress can’t be left off the hook. In the runup to the 2016 election, House speaker Paul Ryan established various task forces headed by committee chairs to advance a Republican policy agenda. As the new speaker put it, “if we want a mandate, then we need to offer ideas. And if we want to offer ideas, then we need to actually have ideas.” House Republicans’ “number-one goal for the next year,” he announced, “is to put together a complete alternative to the Left’s agenda.” The result was six reports released under the title “A Better Way: Our Vision for a Confident America,” one of which tackled national security. While noting the military had “been subject to damaging rollbacks” and that this was impacting the country’s ability “to deter and defeat our adversaries,” the report then argued that “to maintain the most capable fighting force in the world, we must have adequate, predictable budgets.” Despite controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Republican leadership has so far not delivered on that goal.

As one might hope, the two armed services committees have been doing their job, authorizing a defense topline that approaches $700 billion for the 2018 fiscal year, a figure that would be a decent jump-start in addressing what ails the military. And both the Senate and House committees, under the respective leadership of Senator John McCain and Representative Mac Thornberry, have done a good job of hammering home what those ailments are: readiness at a shockingly low level, the inadequate modernization and recapitalization of the all three services and the Marine Corps, and the growing gap between the threats faced in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East and the Pentagon’s ability to address them.

However, authorizing what moneys can be spent for is not the same as appropriating, and it is congressional appropriations that actually provide the dollars that can be spent. The current conundrum is that Republicans are divided between defense hawks who want to spend more on defense and deficit hawks who know that passing an increase will require getting some Democrats onboard by providing more moneys for domestic spending. And in doing so, they fear, the federal debt will grow. Concern about the debt is only heightened by the fact that the tax bills being put forward by the House and the Senate are likely to add to the debt. Since neither party nor the White House will countenance dealing with the real budget problem—the growth in entitlement spending—there doesn’t appear to be a way to appease either the deficit hawks or Democrats and spend what needs to be spent to refurbish the American military.

With the December 8 deadline for appropriating moneys required to keep the government up and running imminent and an equally pressing desire to pass a tax bill before Christmas, it’s virtually certain that the Pentagon will be handed another CR that keeps spending flat. How long that CR will last is anybody’s guess. It could be a few weeks or a few months. And even if an appropriations bill is finally passed, given the lack of will on the part of the Republican leadership and the White House to make the nation’s defenses a priority, the most one can hope for is a deal with Democrats to marginally increase resources for both the Pentagon and domestic accounts. In short, nothing on the scale required.

While in South Korea, in a speech before the national assembly, the president said that “the United States, under my administration, is completely rebuilding its military and is spending hundreds of billions of dollars for the newest and finest military equipment anywhere in the world being built, right now.” He might wish that were the case; he might even believe that is the case. But it certainly isn’t the case.

What’s worrisome is not only that when it comes to goals like deterring Russia, North Korea, China, and Iran and defeating Islamist terrorism we’re betting with (military) chips we don’t have, but that we keep telling the men and women of the military that help is on the way when it isn’t. If the nation wants an all-volunteer force that excels at doing its job in all kinds of godforsaken lands, it can’t continue to have its elected officials overlook the state of the military. Going in harm’s way is one thing; going in harm’s way repeatedly with equipment and platforms worn thin by age and use is something else entirely. That experienced pilots, sailors, and soldiers have begun to walk is no surprise given the promises made and the promises not kept by Congress and their commander in chief.

Gary Schmitt is co-director of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.