Beyond Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling, beyond China’s military buildup across the Taiwan Strait, nothing raises the US military’s threat level more than the words “Everything’s got to be on the table” coming from the east side of the Potomac River.         

That was how President Barack Obama talked then-House Speaker Rep. John Boehner into signing off on roughly $1 trillion in defense budget reductions in the 2011 Budget Control Act. Now there are reports the deal that got the final votes allowing Rep. Kevin McCarthy to become Speaker will lower next year’s Pentagon budget to its FY 2022 discretionary levels. That would cost national security around $80 billion in FY 2024 alone and the Department of Defense roughly $260 billion in the next four fiscal years compared to projected funding levels from the last budget request. “Everything has to be on the table,” Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News on January 8.

This was a bad idea in 2011, and it’s a worse one now, given that there’s a major war in Europe, could well be one in maritime East Asia and widespread instability—including the prospect of an Iranian nuclear breakout—across the greater Middle East. Moreover, the military has suffered from three decades of force reductions, delayed investments, and a hectic pace of operations. 

Of course, capping FY 2024 spending at FY 2022 levels would not mean only a difference in dollars lost. Rampant inflation would cause the squeezed topline to have substantially less buying power and must-pay bills such as pay raises would leave even less available to support and maintain the rest of our force. Luckily, we have a way to understand what a cut of this magnitude to our military capability might look like.

Thus, AEI developed the Defense Futures Simulator (DFS), in collaboration with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and War on the Rocks. DFS is an open-access resource with an algorithm that translates defense strategy and security objectives into concrete budget outcomes. We ran three scenarios factoring in these potential cuts while directing funds to various first priorities: a 2027 conflict with China, a 2030 conflict in China, and Europe today. By 2027, this is what our force might look like:

China 2027:

China 2030:

Europe:

At a minimum across these scenarios, only 20 ships were able to be procured, five Active Brigade Combat Teams were cut, at least $51 billion of research and development funding evaporated, and the B-21 and Ground Based Strategic Deterrent programs were delayed; and these are only the tip of the iceberg. Lurking below the surface are dozens of budgetary decisions that would have to be made to accommodate this cut instead of giving defense the resources it needs to successfully execute its strategy.

But there’s more. Best-case scenario, these cuts and reprioritization could force almost 90,000 people out of service in FY 2024 alone, doing unquantifiable damage to their families and military communities across the country. Additionally, coping with these drastic changes would divert vital attention away from reform efforts across the enterprise and do untold damage to our defense industrial base.

While prospects for these cuts are not looking good, it is important to understand how dangerous even presenting them as a viable option is to our nation’s national security.

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