With Republicans in control, Congress is proceeding toward adding $150 billion to the $886 billion FY 2025 Defense budget, a 17% increase. President Trump has requested about the same amount ($1 trillion) for next year. This supplemental by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) has some Democratic support, signaling growing unease about our military capabilities.
The 59 members of HASC, aided by a hundred staff, allocated the money across more than 180 line items. Each representative supported his or her favorite program(s). Although the result lacked strategic coherence, it did emphasize four themes.
First, shipbuilding received $34 billion, the largest share. This reflected deserved unease about China’s bellicosity in the Pacific as well as recognition that every president since Teddy Roosevelt has dispatched our warships whenever and wherever crises brew. Our fleet has shrunk far below the size needed to carry out such deployments wisely imposed by a succession of commanders-in-chief.
Second, President Trump requested a “Golden Dome.” Congress put in $25 billion. A credible defense of Hawaii, Alaska, and the continent against sub-launched cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and drone swarms would consume a decade of Defense budgets. Our doctrine must remain mutual assured destruction. While Golden Dome needs a lot more thought, funding research across a spectrum of technologies is prudent. Third, missiles and munitions received $20 billion, sorely needed.
The fourth theme is that HASC hewed to a very conventional budget. The loser was the absence of insistence by HASC upon a high-tech, low cost per unit modification that exploited lessons from Ukraine and enticed software talent and innovation from the civilian sector to collaborate with defense industries. As a result, unmanned systems and attack drones received a paltry $4 billion. That will pay for about 80,000 drones at the exorbitant U.S. price of $50,000 per unit. Ukraine expends more than a million drones a year. Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll recently cited an exercise with 200 drones supporting one brigade. A Ukrainian brigade expends 100,000 drones a year in combat. We’re not ready to fight such a war. And our Navy, short of manned vessels, wasn’t inclined to advocate for major funding for unmanned ships.
Conclusion: Congress as the source of funds is not serious about affordable unmanned systems and drones. Any real (e.g., 20%) shift in procurement will have to be driven by the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense.
