Biden requests $813B for national defense

The White House asked Congress for $813 billion for national defense on Monday — including $773 billion for the Pentagon, or $30 billion more than approved by Congress for this year.

The 4 percent boost from the 2022 submission will come as good news for defense hawks, but it won’t be considered enough by Republicans in Congress who were calling for at least a 5 percent raise. The national defense budget enacted for this year was $782 billion.

The 2023 increase isn’t a one-off, either.

A senior DoD official, speaking to reporters Friday to preview the budget, said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told President Joe Biden that he needed more money in the long-term budget planning in order to buy more ships for the Navy, continue developing new weapons such as long-range precision strike weapons, and give pay bonuses to troops, but inflation was making that difficult under the current plan.

The result is a blueprint that adds $20 to $30 billion a year to the budget topline in 2024 and 2025 over what had initially been envisioned, as “the president was persuaded by the secretary’s arguments and agreed to give us this money,” the official said.

As expected, some of the priorities for the department writ large in 2023 are nuclear modernization, missile defense, and research and development.

The White House is requesting $34.4 billion for nuclear modernization, $24.7 billion for missile defense programs and another $27.6 billion for space missile warning, missile tracking and space launch efforts.

The research and development budget will also be the largest on record, increasing 9.5 percent from 2022 to hit $130.1 billion.

The budget request is the largest ever in dollar terms, yet inflation means it’s only a 1.5 percent real increase from the 2022 submission. That fact will draw the ire of many in Congress who have pushed for a 5 to 7 percent increase, citing Russian aggression and continued Chinese military modernization efforts.

The budget focus on China as the “pacing challenge” for the Pentagon will remain consistent, budget documents released Monday morning say. The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month will loom large over how the new request is received in Congress.

The budget will make new investments in the nation’s nuclear triad and in building a new long-range stealth bomber and new nuclear-powered submarines, while increasing investments in hypersonic weapons development and building up the defense industrial base.

Overseas, the request includes $6.9 billion for the European Deterrence Initiative — up from a $3.6 billion request in 2022 — and $1.8 billion for expanding U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

There is an additional $682 million for Ukraine, “to counter Russian malign influence and to meet emerging needs related to security, energy, cybersecurity issues, disinformation, macroeconomic stabilization, and civil society resilience,” according to a budget document.