FIGHT FOR ARMY MODERNIZATION
JOHN WHITLEY
Thursday, May 26, 2022
What a difference a year makes. With the new administration taking office last year, a shift in focus from military power to diplomacy was widely expected to usher in an era of flat, or even declining, defense budgets. These reductions were expected to fall most heavily on the Army, with large potential cuts to force structure used to fund modernization investments elsewhere in the Department of Defense. As the saying goes—when executing a plan, the enemy gets a vote. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has decisively placed the U.S., and our European allies, on a new budget trajectory for the foreseeable future.
In fact, these expectations may never have been realistic in today’s security environment. Increasingly capable near-peer adversaries (China and Russia) took note of the sharp budget reductions that followed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their increasing aggressiveness led to the 2018 National Defense Strategy realignment from counterterrorism/counterinsurgency to near-peer competition. The administration’s first budget submission last summer—$715 billion for 2022, a flattish $11 billion in growth from 2021 that was well under inflation—was quickly increased by Congress to an authorized level of $740 billion in the 2022 defense policy bill.
Wake-up Call
When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Congress still had not passed the actual 2022 appropriation for DoD. With war in Europe, Congress got serious and passed a bill in March that further increased DoD’s budget to $743 billion, an almost $40 billion increase over 2021. A few weeks later, the administration released its 2023 budget request with $773 billion for DoD. Some are now speculating that Congress may increase that by $10 billion–$20 billion during the congressional budget process.
https://www.ausa.org/articles/fight-army-modernization
