Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday rallied against $33 billion in defense budget cuts ordered by President Trump for the coming year.
The decrease in planned spending could force hard choices between either modernizing the nuclear arsenal or continuing to rebuild conventional forces to deal with growing threats from Russia and China, senators warned.
The growing opposition to the president’s announcement last month that he wants to slash planned spending from $733 billion to $700 billion budget came as a blue-ribbon panel delivered a report to the Armed Services committee Tuesday that found U.S. defense is in crisis and could be at risk of losing a major war.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the Armed Services chairman, again said a $733 billion defense budget has to be “looked at as a floor and not a ceiling” and that a higher figure has wide support.
“This is something that we need, I agree that we need it. I think most of the people up here [agree], and I know that you two agree because it’s in your report,” Inhofe told two witnesses from the Commission on the National Defense Strategy. “And yet the $733 billion that they are talking about right now is one that is somewhat in danger.”
Eric Edelman, an ambassador in the Bush administration, and retired Adm. Gary Roughead, who served as the top uniformed officer in the Navy, were co-chairs of the commission and testified that Trump would have a hard time carrying out his administration’s defense strategy.
The commission’s report, ordered up by Congress, found that the U.S. should invest 3-5 percent growth over inflation in defense spending. The Pentagon had originally planned for a $733 billion budget next year that would just keep track with 2 percent inflation and provide no real growth.
However, Trump and the White House are pursuing a “nickel plan” that aims to cut 5 percent from federal spending, and have ordered up a $700 billion defense plan. The Pentagon was set to brief the president on the reworked budget this week.
“We were very troubled when we talked to folks in the administration and the department who said they were planning on flat budgets after [this fiscal year]. It seemed to us it would be very difficult to execute that strategy under those kinds of fiscal constraints,” Edelman said. “So I certainly agree that $733 billion ought to be, as my colleague just said, a floor and not a ceiling.”
Updating the nuclear arsenal could be one of the most expensive defense initiatives on the horizon and could take a hit under Trump’s cuts. Edelman said both the Air Force and the Navy are under pressure to update their nuclear bombers and submarines while also facing a dire need to build up conventional forces.
“The danger, I fear anyway personally, is that we will do a very bad job of both if we don’t adequately resource the strategy,” Edelman said.
Trump’s past two defense budgets included windfall increases aimed at rebuilding military forces after years of capped spending and late funding.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., called the hikes a “down-payment” on what needs to be continued spending on both the conventional military and the nuclear triad.
“What good is conventional modernization if Russia or China, or Russia and China combined, have the ability to destroy our way of life with nuclear overmatch, is that correct, Ambassador Edelman?” Cotton said during the Senate hearing.
Edelman said that Russia has also threatened to use nuclear weapons tactically as a way to escalate and win smaller regional conflicts, creating two strategic dangers.
“The point that the report makes is that $733 billion for the fiscal year should be considered a floor and that it probably should be more than that,” Cotton said. “But what has been especially alarming is the reports we’ve seen that the administration may be considering cutting 5 percent from the Department of Defense all the way down to $700 billion, is that correct?”
“That’s correct, yes, sir,” Roughead said.
