A lot of facts are built into the proposed 412-page Fiscal Year (FY24) U.S. defense budget, nearly $1 trillion worth of them.
But trends in budget requests from the service branches under the Biden administration make at least two “immutable facts” stand out to Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.).
“First, the Army does not have sufficient money to support their Army modernization strategy,” said Wittman, chair of the House Armed Services Committee’s Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.
“The second immutable fact,” he said, “is that the Air Force is getting smaller because the budget does not support Air Force requirements.”
The preliminary approvals set the stage for a summer of hearings on the defense budget beginning June 21, when it goes before the entire 59-member House Armed Services Committee for the first time.
The Senate is debating its own version of the NDAA. The defense budget, as with all elements of the FY24 federal spending plan, will be deliberated into September in both chambers. Ideally, the budget will be adopted before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
The NDAA spells out $874.2 billion in spending, with $841.5 billion tabbed for the Department of Defense (DOD), an increase of nearly $26 billion, or 3.2 percent, over FY23’s enacted NDAA, and $32.26 billion for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) nuclear weapons programs.
Since March, House Armed Services Committee sub-panels have been ferreting through the massive appropriations package and criticizing the Biden administration and DOD for directing resources into programs and initiatives that, despite the Pentagon’s classification of China as the nation’s “pacing challenge,” don’t adequately address threats in the Indo-Pacific, nor by Vladimir Putin’s Russia in Europe.
Those were among the trends Wittman was referring to in his “two immutable facts” statement to open the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee’s review of its spending plan that it unanimously dispatched to the House Armed Services Committee.
Army Future Needs ‘Scaled Back’
“There are extensive gaps in the fielding of the future of the Army,” Wittman said. “Our President, across the entire budget request, includes procurement shortfalls in Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting vehicles, and Paladin Howitzers. But this should not be surprising considering the Army was reduced from last year and that resulted in a 5-percent reduction in real procurement.“My fears,” he added, “are the Army’s future needs” are being “significantly scaled back” in a way that will “continue to eat away at Army capacity … to meet future requirements and deliver the right capabilities.”
The panel boosted the Army’s $59.554 billion operations and maintenance budget request by nearly $70 million and its added dollars to proposed procurements across a range of weapons systems.
The Army’s $3 billion aircraft procurement request was increased by $240 million, primarily related to CH-47 helicopters. Its $3.765 billion weapons and tracked vehicle spending plan was elevated to $4.39 billion with procurements for Paladin systems boosted by $110 million to $579 million and for Stryker armored fighting vehicles increased by $142 million to $757 million.
The subcommittee’s proposed budget penalizes Army Secretary Christine Wormuth’s office, limiting its administrative funding until it “submits to Congressional defense committees the analysis of alternatives for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program.”
It also requires a Government Accountability Office (GAO) assessment of the Army’s air and missile defense program and its Long-Range Precision Fires program.
But a greater revision in the Army’s priorities and capacities is necessary, Wittman said.
“The Army needs a new strategy that looks beyond a potential European conflict and focuses instead on fully providing the capability required to meet the Indo-Pacific challenges of distance and depth,” he said. “One that provides for long-range fires missile defense logistics and communications necessary to fully enable the joint force.”
Air Force Subtracting not Adding
Wittman was especially critical of the Air Force’s budget request, claiming it sets the course for a “force-structure decline that we will not be able to reverse—and this decline hits us at the exact time [projected] by the ‘Davidson Window,’ in the late 2020s.”“It is obvious we need to change our strategy and our direction,” Wittman said. “Our zeal for real capability needs to be adequately balanced with our fiscal realities. Unfortunately, this budget request fails to provide both for our armed forces and, worse, accelerates the likelihood of future conflict by failing to narrow the impending ‘Davidson Window’ of opportunity for the Chinese Communist Party.”
He said the Air Force’s budget request appears oblivious to countering China’s growing threat.
“The Air Force plans on divesting 801 fighter aircraft and only procuring 345 new F-35a and F-15e aircraft over the next five years,” Wittman said. “Even worse, this declination may accelerate as future tactical aircraft are expected to cost hundreds of billions of dollars as inflation continues to bite into real defense growth.”
The subcommittee’s proposed spending plan actually trims the Air Force’s operations and maintenance budget request by $750 million to $62 billion and outlines marginal increases in overall procurement, but significantly revises acquisition priorities.
The Air Force submitted a $34.83 million procurement request for F-15s. The panel’s plan calls for $155.2 million in F-15 purchases, a $120 million hike.
The proposed subcommittee budget boosts spending for new F-16s by $100 million over the Air Force’s $297.34 million request, and increases by $22 million C-130 acquisitions.
“The Air Force needs a dose of budget reality in developing the required force structure needed to be successful in a future conflict,” Wittman said. “The Air Force must provide long-range sensing, autonomous tanking, and collaborative combat aircraft in the near-term. We take steps today to reduce risk and increase capacity.”
Ranking Member, or lead subcommittee Democrat, Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), agreed with Wittman’s assessment, noting he’d like to see “more focus on defense against unmanned vehicles.”
One component of the spending package that the panel cited progress in was munitions procurements which Norcross said “provides much-needed support for … the [nation’s] munitions industrial base.”
“The Ukraine situation certainly highlights that we must work harder to modernize and improve the safety of our ammunition industrial base,” he said. “We must continue to look for and provide any additional authorities and resources so that the department can rapidly increase the industrial base and capabilities.”
“Improving on the president’s budget request, this [proposed budget] does a good job,” Wittman said.
“I think we have a long way to go to shape the future, and the vision of our military services is at stake.”
