Biden Requests Less Than 1% Boost to Pentagon R&D, Despite Hyping New Defense Tech
As the Defense Department shifts its focus toward more technologically advanced potential adversaries, it will have to research and develop more and sustain less.
By Patrick Tucker
Technology Editor
May 28, 2021
After a half-decade in which the Pentagon’s research budget saw larger increases, the Biden administration will request a real boost of less than one percent.
If inflation stays around 4 percent, the Defense Department’s 2022 request for $112 billion for research, development, test, and engineering would be about 0.6 percent more than the $107 billion requested for the current fiscal year. That follows several years of larger increases in research dollars, reflecting the Pentagon’s slow but steady shift toward countering the quickly advancing capabilities of China and Russia.
“I think it's generally a good news story from an [research, development testing and evaluation] standpoint,” a senior Defense official told reporters on background Thursday. The large request reflected the challenge of “getting after the higher-end fight against a peer adversary like China and Russia...You have to really kind of make those leaps in technology. And I think, you know, this budget...certainly does put that foot forward.”
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/05/biden-requests-less-1-boost-pentagon-rd-despite-hyping-new-defense-tech/174361/
