BOTTOM LINE ON THE TOP LINE: President Trump has issued his budget guidance to his agencies, and it comes down to very simple math: Subtract $54 billion from non-defense discretionary domestic spending, add it to the Pentagon’s budget, and voila! You have a 10 percent increase in military spending without adding to the deficit. The top line defense number for the base budget for fiscal 2018 is $603 billion. As OMB Director Mick Mulvaney explains it, it’s a blueprint, not a full-blown budget proposal. “So you’re not going to see anything in here that has to do with mandatory spending, entitlement reforms, tax policies, revenue projections or the infrastructure plan.” On Fox, Mulvaney compared it to Americans figuring out their personal finances. “Your family sits down and says ‘OK, here’s what we’re going to spend this year on three or four large line items.’ ”
THE NUMBERS: Discretionary spending for the federal budget is over $1 trillion, $603 billion for defense and $462 billion for non-defense spending. The White House touts the $54 billion plus-up for the Pentagon as “one of the largest increases in history” for defense spending, and “the largest proposed reduction in domestic spending since the early years of the Reagan administration.”
NOT SO FAST: Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain points out the Trump top line is only a modest improvement over the increase of $18.5 billion proposed by previous administration for next year. (Quick help: the Budget Control Act set spending at $549 billion, Obama called for $586 billion, Trump for $603 billion.) “In other words, President Trump intends to submit a defense budget that is a mere 3 percent above President Obama’s defense budget, which has left our military underfunded, undersized, and unready to confront threats to our national security,” McCain complained. McCain, in his white paper issued last month, called for a defense budget of $640 billion. “With a world on fire, America cannot secure peace through strength with just 3 percent more than President Obama’s budget. We can and must do better.”
McCain’s counterpart in the House, Rep. Mac Thornberry, was also underwhelmed. The House Armed Services Committee chairman issued a similar statement. “We can and should do more than this level of funding will allow,” Thornberry said. “The administration will have to make clear which problems facing our military they are choosing not to fix.”
AND IT’S DOA WITH SENATE DEMS: “There’s no way he’s going to get that blueprint through Congress” when it comes to the tough task of passing appropriations bills in the Senate, Sen. Chris Van Hollen told the Washington Examiner Monday night. “I can support increases in defense, but I’m not going to stand by while he guts our investments in education, innovation and infrastructure.
“We need to have a balance between those requests for defense [increases] and for these important domestic economic investments,” he added.
FOREIGN AID CUTS PROTESTED: A key part of the Trump plan is to shift money from the State Department and foreign aid over to the Pentagon. “Foreign aid, for example, the president said we’re going to spend less money overseas and spend more of it here,” Mulvaney said at the White House yesterday. “That’s going to be reflected with the number we send to the State Department.” The cut at State could be as high as 30 percent. That news drew immediate fire from a group of more than 120 retired three and four-star generals and admirals, who sent a letter to the leaders in the House and Senate. The full text of the letter is here, but basically it calls on Congress to remember that military power must be combined with effective diplomacy, and it quotes Defense Secretary Jim Mattis from his time as commander of U.S. Central Command. “If you don’t fully fund the State Department, then I need to buy more ammunition.” The list include many generals who supported Hillary Clinton in the last election, but it also is heavy on former members of the Joint Chiefs and top commanders, such as retired Gen. David Petraeus. Maybe foreign aid would fare better if it was rebranded as “foreign leverage.”
THE HERITAGE TAKE: Heritage’s James Carafano says of the request: “As documented in Heritage’s Index of U.S. Military Strength, we don’t have the defense we need to protect America’s vital interests. The president’s budget is a down payment on fixing this problem. Even as the administration strives to drive down costs of new systems and make defense operations more effective, that’s a fact that only a better budget can fix.”
Good Tuesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre), National Security Writer Jacqueline Klimas (@jacqklimas) and Senior Editor David Brown (@dave_brown24). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll be sure to add you to our list.
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HAPPENING TODAY: Trump delivers his first address to a joint session of Congress tonight (9 p.m. Eastern). “The president will lay out an optimistic vision for the country, crossing traditional lines of party, race, socioeconomic status,” said White House spokesman Sean Spicer. “The theme will be the renewal of the American spirit. He will invite Americans of all backgrounds to come together in the service of a stronger and brighter future for our nation.” Here’s a sample of what some members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are expecting.
FRAMEWORK, NOT A CHECKLIST: The Pentagon’s revised plan to hasten the defeat of ISIS went to the White House yesterday, and was discussed by the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, which consists of everyone on the NSC but the president. The Pentagon continued to play down the idea that it’s a fully formed strategy, casting it instead as a broad framework for hashing out which options should be presented to the president. “There are individual elements in that there will require some decisions,” said Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, “but it’s not a ‘check the block, pick a, b or c,’ … classic military plan.” Davis did drop a hint that if the president wants the fastest option to liberate the Syrian city of Raqqa from ISIS control, the Syrian Kurds may be the best option. “We have noted in the past that the only force that is capable of retaking Raqqa quickly is the Syrian Arab Coalition, with the SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces],” Davis said. “Any other answer would require a longer lead time.”
TALIBAN COMMANDER KILLED: The U.S. military reports that a key Taliban commander was killed two days ago in a strike in Kunduz province, Afghanistan. Mullah Salam, who was identified as the Taliban commander for Kunduz, was killed along with four other enemy combatants in an operation the U.S. conducted along with Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. “Mullah Salam and the Taliban fighters under him murdered and terrorized the people of Kunduz for too long,” said U.S. Afghanistan commander Gen. John Nicholson in a statement. The U.S. said no civilians were killed in the Feb. 26 operation.
ON RUSSIAN HACKING, NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Spicer dodged questions on Monday about the need for a special prosecutor to probe Russia’s cyber activity, saying the issue has already been investigated “up and down,” Gabby Morrongiello writes. “A special prosecutor for what?” Spicer responded when asked if Attorney General Jeff Sessions, one of the Trump campaign’s earliest supporters, should recuse himself from an investigation into Russia. “We have now for six months heard story after story come out about unnamed sources saying the same thing over and over again. We’ve heard the same people, the same anecdotes. So at one point, you have to ask yourself what are you investigating?” he said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan also dismissed calls for a special prosecutor. “The proper place, in my opinion, is the intelligence committees because they’re the ones who have access to methods of intelligence gathering,” Ryan told reporters at the White House Monday afternoon.
The Wisconsin Republican had been asked to weigh in on Rep. Darrell Issa, who suggested over the weekend that the Justice Department appoint a special prosecutor to investigate ongoing questions about Russia’s hack-and-release operations and alleged contacts between Moscow and aides to Trump. “This is sensitive information that involves how we collect intelligence. That is why we have an intelligence committee that goes through the clearance process, that gets access to that information, and which is conducting an investigation,” Ryan said.
CASE CLOSED, OR STILL OPEN?: Rep. Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, made similar comments, Susan Ferrechio writes, and warned of a “witch hunt.” Nunes said federal intelligence officials have provided no information that points to a connection between Russian officials and anyone who worked for Trump’s campaign, and warned against a “witch hunt,” against private citizens. “There’s nothing there,” Nunes told reporters at a press conference he called to update the media on the probe. “As of right now, I don’t have any evidence of any phone calls. The way it sounds to me is that it’s been looked into, and there is no evidence of anything there.”
But Rep. Adam Schiff, who is the ranking Democrat on the committee, had the opposite take, arguing the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, ad that the point of an investigation is to find the evidence. “The reality is we don’t know whether there were contacts with Trump campaign officials. That’s one of the core issues that we’re going to investigate,” Schiff said on MSNBC. “The fact is, we haven’t even begun to sit down with the FBI to talk about what have they looked at, who have they talked to, what leads have been pursued, what haven’t. So it is, I think, way premature to be drawing any kind of conclusions about whether there was collusion. This is one of the most important aspects of our investigation.”
NO SECOND GUESSING: In response to the calls from the father of fallen Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, there will be no review of the presidential decision to launch the raid in Yemen that resulted in the death of Owens, the loss of a V-22 Osprey, and the unintended deaths of civilians. There will be the standard military investigation of all three incidents, but no second-guessing of whether the decision to launch the raid in the first place was flawed. “I think when you look at what the stated goal of that mission was, it was an information and intelligence-gathering mission and it achieved its objectives,” Spicer said. “We’re very comfortable with how the mission was executed and, you know, we’ll let the Department of Defense go through that review process and then see where that leads us.” An NBC report disputes the assertion that valuable intelligence was gained.
FUN FACT TO KNOW AND TELL: The amount by which the Trump administration is proposing to increase U.S. defense spending, $54 billion, is more than what Russia spends on defense in total, according to published reports of Moscow’s latest budget. While it’s likely some of Russia military spending is secret, its acknowledged budget for 2017 is 2,840 billion rubles, or about $45 billion.
THE RUNDOWN
The National Interest: Trump’s Defense Budget Won’t Yield a Serious Military Buildup
Army Times: Glock is protesting the Army’s choice of Sig Sauer for its new handgun
Defense News: The T-X battle comes down to Lockheed and Boeing
UPI: U.S. Navy contracts Boeing for P-8A enhancements
Defense One: Counter-Terror Chief: Expect Terrorist Drone Swarms ‘Soon’
CNN: Deputy al Qaeda leader killed In Syria
Defense News: Russia’s fifth-gen fighter blitz
Military.com: Viper Attack Helicopters Give Marines New Weapon for Pacific Arsenal
Calendar
TUESDAY | FEBRUARY 28
10 a.m. Dirksen 419. Two think tank experts testify on the state of Iraq once the battle to retake Mosul is over. foreign.senate.gov
2 p.m. Rayburn 2172. Witnesses from the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute testify on China’s maritime push. Foreignaffairs.house.gov
3:30 p.m. Rayburn 2118. The House Armed Services Committee hears military witnesses on the DoD inspector general’s report relating to U.S. Central Command’s intelligence products. Armedservices.house.gov
9 p.m. President Trump addresses joint session of Congress.
WEDNESDAY | MARCH 1
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Pentagon officials talk about the future of vertical lift platforms. Csis.org
3:30 p.m. Rayburn 2212. The House Armed Services Committee holds a hearing focusing on ground force capability in Eastern Europe. Armedservices.house.gov
9 p.m. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham take part in a town hall meeting on CNN
THURSDAY | MARCH 2
9 a.m. 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Rep. Joe Wilson talks about the military readiness crisis. aei.org
2 p.m. Hart 219. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence holds a closed hearing. intelligence.senate.gov
