Defense Department leadership told lawmakers Thursday the Pentagon’s first budget request under President Joe Biden will emphasize taking on China, with a proposal to increase research funding sharply.
The White House is slated to roll out its first federal spending blueprint on Friday, meaning lawmakers are still waiting to get hard numbers from the administration. Still, members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense worried the Chinese military would grow faster than the United States’s. They also made clear they see no clear direction from the Defense Department for divesting from expensive, older systems that often benefit political interests over strategic ones.
“It funds the right mix of capabilities that we need most to defend this nation now and in the future,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Austin highlighted proposed investments in hypersonic weapons, long-range fires, artificial intelligence, microelectronics, 5G technology, cyber capabilities, shipbuilding, and nuclear modernization.
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“It gives us the flexibility to divest ourselves of systems and platforms that do not adequately meet our needs,” he said. “Including older ships and aircraft and [intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance] platforms that demand more maintenance and upkeep and risk than we can afford.”
However, that is dependent on new models coming online, which is not a strength of the services and their industry partners. Although they tend to promise cutting-edge technologies, they often aren’t delivered according to estimates. The result is a slew of over-budget and delayed programs that are five or more years late, forcing the services to pay large bills to keep older systems running.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley also led his list with nuclear modernization, hinting that the aging nuclear triad, often the target of liberal Democrats, will be prioritized.
Meantime, California Republican Ken Calvert stated his dismay, echoed by his GOP colleagues, that the budget of $715 billion proposed by President Joe Biden was not the 3%-5% increase over inflation he had hoped for.
“I’m greatly concerned by both the level of defense budget requests for the Fiscal Year 2022 and the significant delay in delivering it to Congress,” he said.
Democratic Chairwoman Betty McCollum of Minnesota said no amount of funding would be enough to satisfy everything, but weapons gaps with adversaries will not be allowed to widen. Lawmakers make such pledges each year, but programmatic problems only get worse.
“No matter how much we provide our armed forces, some will always argue it’s not enough. There will always be new and increasingly expensive technologies to develop,” she said. “We will not allow for the capability gaps in key weapon systems so that we can deter our adversaries and defend our nation.”
McCollum called on her colleagues not to think of the military competition with Russia and China in a vacuum.
“The key to successful competition with Russia and China is through a combination: economic, diplomatic, and military strength,” she said.
‘Numbers matter’
Absent specific purchasing plans, Calvert and the military leaders engaged in an abstract tit for tat over the Chinese Navy.
“China is currently and will remain our pacing challenge going forward,” Austin said. “Numbers are important, but we will never seek to match our adversaries one-for-one. We will always seek to develop a much greater capability.”
Austin’s first overseas trip was to the Indo-Pacific region, where he met with treaty allies Japan and South Korea and growing partner India. Austin will meet again with his Indian counterparts Friday in Washington.
Still, China’s Navy is larger than the U.S.’s, and its industry cranks out 18 to 20 ships per year — double the American output.
“I still think numbers matter,” Calvert said. “China’s budget is going up by double digits. They have significantly more ships, bombers, fighters, missiles in the South Pacific.”
Austin hinted the FY-22 budget would do much to close the capabilities gap as China works to reach parity with the U.S. military by the 2030s.
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Austin said the budget would make “probably the largest ever request” for research, development, test, and evaluation funding to ramp up defense programs in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and space-based platform.
“We recognize the fact that China’s attempting to make strides in cyber and space,” Austin said. “We are confident in the mix of capabilities that we are investing in will put us in the right place in terms of maintaining a competitive edge and increasing that competitive edge going forward.”
