Joe Biden’s aspirational defense budget

The Biden administration submitted its 2024 defense budget request of $842 billion to Congress with wonderful messaging about it being the largest, strategy-aligned and procurement-focused budget — a budget sufficient to carry out America’s national security and defense strategies.

Unfortunately, these claims are not backed by facts. They are aspirations — only hopes or ambitions to achieve something.

The budget “aspires” to be an increase; it is not; it aspires to be a procurement budget; it is not. And though it claims to be enough to support strategic requirements; it is not.

Department of Defense leadership has touted this defense budget request as the largest in nominal terms ever proposed, with an increase of 3.2 percent over current spending. In fact, the 2.4 percent inflation assumption used immediately cuts the increase to 0.8 percent, which is more than consumed by the $15.4 billion for the military pay raise, and the must-pay housing and subsistence allowance costs noted by Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord in a recent letter to Congress. If one further subtracts the civilian pay raise and then uses a more realistic 5 percent inflation assumption, one gets a sizable budget cut compared to current levels, not the claimed 3.2 percent increase.

Resourcing defense is not only about the top line. It is about the strategy and outcomes in achieving that strategy. While the Department repeatedly points to a large increase in its request for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI) as a key example of its strategy-driven budget, determining the presence of any real spending increases is difficult as the PDI has been primarily a budget binning exercise where ongoing efforts are simply categorized under the PDI umbrella.

Another strategic priority – combat credible maritime capabilities – further illustrates the disconnect between strategy and resources. Navy budget overview documents note that: “To maintain our advantage at sea, America needs a larger and more capable Navy.” The Navy also reminds us in its budget overview that the China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy fleet has added more than 100 combatants, boasts approximately 340 ships and is moving toward a fleet of 440 by 2030.

So, what happens to the U.S. fleet in this budget? It gets smaller. From 296 ships today, it declines to 293 in fiscal year 2024 and to 291 ships by 2028.

The Navy budget also contains no new amphibious ships for the Marine Corps, which means that the fleet would fall below the 31 ships of that type required by law. When questioned about this, Navy Under Secretary Erik Raven said that the Navy would continue working with Congress to determine amphibious warship numbers and capabilities, which sounds like code for relying on Congress to fix the Navy budget.

Another key measure of budget sufficiency is the ability to buy stuff in sufficient amounts and with needed capability to support the strategy. Seeming to recognize this, the Department has declared this year as a “procurement” budget.

But it does not take much analysis to see that procurement is not the priority this statement claims. Compared to the 2023 enacted level, the procurement appropriation would go up by only 3.8 percent. This is less than the increase proposed for research, development, test and evaluation. It maintains a historically low ratio between the procurement and research appropriations and would fall short of even an inflationary increase.

Though the hundreds of put-and-takes within procurement accounts can be tough to follow, the result is a $170 billion request that doesn’t even keep pace with inflationary cost increases. And, though Navy, Air Force and Defense-wide accounts, which include the Missile Defense Agency and Special Operations Command, creep up a bit in nominal terms, Army procurement goes down overall while generally placing a priority on missiles and munitions over aircraft and vehicles with the exception of the Armored Multi Purpose Vehicle. Unfortunately, higher inventories are needed in each of these areas so it is tough to see this as a real procurement-focused budget.

The budget has some bright spots, including investments in IT modernization and cyber, industrial base capacity improvements, munitions and missile stockpiles including the planned use of multiyear contracting authority, and the portfolio of programs designed to help capabilities cross the valley of death between innovation and production and procurement. But it is puzzling that one of the Department’s most successful efforts in this area, the Defense Innovation Unit, appears to receive a 6.3 percent cut in this budget. The cut goes up to 26 percent if the related National Security Innovation Network and capital budgets are included.

Aspirations are good. They set the bar for achieving greater things. But without the right capacity, capability, tools and resources, they quickly turn to disappointment. It will take urgent and persistent action by Congress to provide sufficient, on-time resources to pursue the aspirations this budget request claims to value.

Elaine McCusker is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She is a former acting undersecretary of defense (comptroller).