Today's D Brief: Budget Day, here at last; Tracking space junk; Afghanistan pullout; USAID, hacked; And a bit more.
By Bradley Peniston and Ben Watson
May 28, 2021 10:51 AM ET
The D Brief
It’s Budget Day at the Pentagon, at last. This morning, public-affairs officials are distributing embargoed documents detailing the Biden administration’s $715 billion defense spending request for 2022. Press briefings will follow this afternoon. Stay tuned for service-by-service looks at the budget proposals.
By the calendar, it will be the latest annual spending request submitted by a presidential administration in at least 100 years, writes Defense One’s Marcus Weisgerber, and perhaps that means it will bring more spending shifts than the typical first budget of an administration.
Still, big change may wait until the 2023 request, which is expected to be influenced by the Pentagon’s ongoing Global Posture Review, Weisgerber reports.
SecDef on the budget. “It invests in hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, micro electronics, 5G technology, cyber capabilities, shipbuilding, climate change resilience, and nuclear modern modernization to name a few,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Thursday.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/05/the-d-brief-may-28-2021/174381/
