As we await the release of the President’s fiscal year 2024 (FY 2024) budget request to Congress in early March, chatter continues on Capitol Hill about potentially irresponsible and dangerous cuts to defense.
Such speculation immediately follows and directly contradicts bipartisan support for a defense budget enacted on December 23, 2022 that increased spending by $74 billion over previously approved levels. It is worth remembering that defense is just starting to build momentum in recovering sustainable readiness, modernizing capabilities, and maintaining the force after decades of unpredictable, delayed, and insufficient funding.
Discussion of defense spending should begin with strategy. This means assessing what we expect from our military as well as the capabilities and capacity that are required to accomplish those goals. It also requires asking: what timelines for response to military deployment orders or operations do we find tolerable? And what level of risk, specifically, are we willing to accept?
With these central questions, and economic realities in mind, the FY 2024 baseline defense budget should be at least $882 billion with growth in following years toward 5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.
This level of funding would support the force structure, modernization, and readiness required to carry out the National Defense Strategy. Such a budget would also accommodate estimated inflation and an associated pay increase for service members.
Increased funding would be devoted only to those areas of the defense budget that directly produce military capability, with a specific focus on increasing capacity, promoting innovation and integration of new capabilities, maintaining readiness and fixing manufacturing and supply chain challenges.
Programming AEI’s Defense Futures Simulator to place a priority on a potential near-term conflict with China, increased funding in procurement would buy an additional Virginia-class submarine, Ford-class carrier, DDG-1000 destroyer, and LPD Flight II amphibious transport when compared to last year’s budget plan for FY 2024. This increase would also make room for the purchase of an additional two DDG-51 destroyers, two FFG(X) Frigates, 48 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, and 24 F-15EX fighters.
The budget would elevate the priority of munition and missile inventories across services by adding the following additional quantities to those previously planned for procurement: 3730 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, 3594 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, 655 Javelins, 1,872 Hellfire Missiles, 460 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, 746 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles, 1257 Small Diameter Bombs II, and 82 Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles. This increased production would revitalize manufacturing plants, supply chains, and the workforce that runs them as we build the necessary stockpiles of these weapons.
Funding for readiness would go up $15 billion over what had been planned, with special attention paid to the Navy for depot maintenance and Air Force for weapons systems sustainment and aircraft availabilities. This funding would also be critical to supporting Army training, exercises, and base operations support. These readiness accounts are the lifeblood of operations across the nation and the world and support many of the activities that are key to maintaining interoperability with close partners.
The increased topline would also accelerate the development of multiple satellite programs and hypersonic missiles as well as beef up all cyber teams, furthering multi-domain operational capabilities in areas where we have lost and are losing competitiveness.
This proposed budget assumes 4 percent inflation and for personnel would provide the same percentage pay raise for military members and civilians in FY 2024 in order to keep pace with rising prices and keep salaries as competitive as possible. It would also be a step toward matching the stated strategy to resourcing requirements while putting defense on a trajectory consistent with its position as the primary function of the federal government.
There is a false belief that the Pentagon can reform or save its way out of the current budget hole. Let’s be clear: it can’t. Should the Pentagon be a smarter customer and improve its budget agility and responsiveness? Yes. Should people understand the programs and activities in the defense budget that do not directly support military capability? Absolutely, and this understanding should be applied to any continued insistence on budget agreements that include parity between defense and non-defense spending. But the importance of reforms should not be confused with the inadequacy of the defense budget.
Whether we use percent of gross domestic product or inflation-adjusted numbers, the damage and lost buying power from the Budget Control Act era still persist today. We should be unwilling to accept any budget plan that threatens to repeat this dangerously irresponsible and costly mistake.
To this end, it is not necessary for Congress to wait for the President’s Budget in March. Our representatives on Capitol Hill have an opportunity to lead this year by reaching a budget agreement now that will allow enactment of regular appropriations bills, most importantly for defense, before the start of the fiscal year on October 1, 2023.
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