{"id":64146,"date":"2021-04-28T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2021-04-27T20:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=64146"},"modified":"2021-04-27T15:46:19","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T05:46:19","slug":"bidens-budget-request-steady-but-unimaginative-on-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/bidens-budget-request-steady-but-unimaginative-on-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden\u2019s budget request steady but unimaginative on defence"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

US President Joe Biden has sent Congress his requested budget<\/a> for the 2022 fiscal year. Due to the timelines of a presidential transition year, there\u2019s not a lot of detail yet, but there\u2019s enough to answer one big question in the strategic policy sphere: there won\u2019t be a big change to the defence budget.<\/p>\n

The document\u2019s preamble states that \u2018America is confronting four compounding crises of unprecedented scope and scale all at the same time.\u2019 For those of us in the national security community, it\u2019s a useful reminder of Biden\u2019s priorities that China\u2019s increasing power and aggression is not one of the four; rather, they are the pandemic, the resulting economic crisis, a \u2018national reckoning on racial inequality centuries in the making\u2019, and climate change. Competition with China is mentioned, but Biden makes clear that it isn\u2019t simply or even mainly a military problem. Instead, he seeks to outcompete China through \u2018a comprehensive strategy to reimagine and rebuild a new American economy\u2019.<\/p>\n

On top of that, Biden wasn\u2019t exactly dealt a great hand in terms of cash in the bank. The budget request is only for discretionary funding. The bulk of the US federal budget is mandated or non-discretionary funding, which includes things like Social Security (retirement and disability benefits) and Medicare (health care for seniors). Over the past 35 years, mandated expenditure has grown<\/a> from rough parity with discretionary funding to more than twice as much. In 2020 it blew out even further, to around three times as much, because of unemployment benefits and other support payments made during the pandemic (discretionary spending was around US$1.6 trillion and mandated was nearly US$4.9 trillion). With that, the annual deficit, which had been approaching US$1 trillion, surged past US$3 trillion. That also brought the public debt to US$21 trillion, or around 100% of GDP.<\/p>\n

Within the discretionary budget, there\u2019s been a rough 50\u201350 split between defence and non-defence spending. With most of the federal budget essentially untouchable, it might have been tempting for Biden to take the razor to defence spending to find the discretionary funds to support his domestic priorities. But he hasn\u2019t done that. His discretionary budget request maintains an almost even split between defence and non-defence spending, despite his intent to reverse the long-term trend of declining non-defence discretionary spending.<\/p>\n

The total defence request is US$753 billion, around US$12 billion more than President Donald Trump\u2019s 2021 budget. Of that, US$715 billion is for the Department of Defense itself. In comparison, the rest of the discretionary budget, which funds everything else from energy to education, is only slightly more at US$769 billion. Defence spending is around 3.2% of GDP\u2014far more than America\u2019s allies, including Australia.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a budget that probably disappoints the doves who want significant readjustment of spending priorities, and it\u2019s about as good as the hawks could have reasonably hoped for.<\/p>\n

The request acknowledges that more detail is to come. Even so, the lack of specifics around the Department of Defense stands out. While other departments\u2019 individual programs are described with dollars attached, the DoD has only high-level language with no dollars. Whether that\u2019s because issues such as health, energy and the environment are higher priorities, or because the administration hasn\u2019t yet been able get its arms around the elephantine problems facing the DoD is not clear. But the discrepancy between the boilerplate language on defence and the sense of urgency and renewal in other areas is striking.<\/p>\n

What is there on defence largely gives an impression of continuity. Countering the threat from China remains the department\u2019s top challenge. There\u2019s a commitment to \u2018a strong, credible nuclear deterrent for the security of the Nation and US allies\u2019. The recapitalisation of the ballistic missile submarine fleet\u2014the US Navy\u2019s most expensive program\u2014will continue.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration\u2019s conviction that the means to manage competition with China are not purely military ones is evident in the document\u2019s emphasis on rebuilding the economy and working with partners and allies. Importantly, the request includes a substantial increase to the State Department budget. But the need to deliver military capability is also real.<\/p>\n

The administration seeks to \u2018reimagine\u2019 the economy, and elsewhere Biden has proposed bold ideas that affect all departments, such as putting climate change into their core planning. But there are few clear signs in this document of imagination at work in the administration\u2019s plans specifically for defence. However, doing business the same way is unlikely to enable the US to counter the threats it perceives around the world.<\/p>\n

The army, navy and air force all face major recapitalisation challenges<\/a>, with fleets ageing out and the mounting cost of replacements simply unaffordable. Meanwhile, Chinese military power grows apace, reflecting its role as the world\u2019s factory. China\u2019s shipyards are pumping out ships<\/a> at a rate the US can\u2019t match. Trump\u2019s defence secretary grappled for a year with the problem of how to design a navy that could counter China before delivering a plan that was essentially unaffordable and unachievable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s administration will have to wrestle with the same challenges, and the lack of detail in the budget request suggests it hasn\u2019t resolved where, or indeed whether, it will make fundamental changes. The boilerplate language leaves some room for manoeuvring. For example, it doesn\u2019t sign up to a target for the size of the fleet, such as the 355 ships that have been an unattainable and arguably distracting goal for years. There are references to innovation and emerging technologies, such as \u2018remotely operated and autonomous systems\u2019 and hypersonics.<\/p>\n

The request also refers to divesting \u2018legacy capacity and force structure\u2019. Again, this is standard boilerplate, but potentially offers cover for some large force structure decisions, such as reducing the size of the army to reinvest in the maritime and air assets needed in the Pacific.<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s decision to follow through on the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan suggests that he\u2019s willing to make tough calls. One may not agree with the decision, but he broke with the status quo, even if the outcome is not clear. That decision will likely play well to a US public tired of \u2018endless wars\u2019, but it won\u2019t by itself make much difference to the balance of power in the western Pacific. That will likely require a combination of more tough decisions and greater imagination than was revealed in this budget request.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Joe Biden has sent Congress his requested budget for the 2022 fiscal year. Due to the timelines of a presidential transition year, there\u2019s not a lot of detail yet, but there\u2019s enough to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":767,"featured_media":64151,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,2825,31],"class_list":["post-64146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-defence-spending","tag-joe-biden","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBiden\u2019s budget request steady but unimaginative on defence | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/bidens-budget-request-steady-but-unimaginative-on-defence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biden\u2019s budget request steady but unimaginative on defence | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"US President Joe Biden has sent Congress his requested budget for the 2022 fiscal year. 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