{"id":23889,"date":"2018-05-17T16:31:38","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T16:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/05\/17\/trump-budget-wont-rebuild-the-military-and-thats-dangerous-think-tank-says\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:05:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:05:31","slug":"trump-budget-wont-rebuild-the-military-and-thats-dangerous-think-tank-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2018\/05\/17\/trump-budget-wont-rebuild-the-military-and-thats-dangerous-think-tank-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump budget won\u2019t rebuild the military, and that\u2019s dangerous, think tank says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump\u2019s budget plans<\/a> will fail at \u201crebuilding<\/a>\u201d the armed forces, but there\u2019s room for lawmakers to act, according to a new American Enterprise Institute report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conservative think tank argues the president\u2019s 2019 budget request<\/a> bets too heavily on research and development for next-generation technologies and that lawmakers must tilt the balance toward procurement of existing technologies to replace aging stocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe American military will bottom out in the 2020s,\u201d AEI\u2019s Mackenzie Eaglen writes in a report<\/a> published Wednesday: \u201cDefense Budget Peaks in 2019, Underfunding National Defense Strategy.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Pentagon will never have the chance to use the weapons it is developing if it\u2019s preempted by a failure of deterrence in the 2020s, rendering the RDT&E expenditures for those systems irrelevant,\u201d Eaglen writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortchanging procurement would be risky, Eaglen argues, as the Pentagon expects a procurement bow wave<\/a> due to increased wear and tear on core aircraft, ships and tanks. To boot, it creates a vulnerability adversaries might seek to exploit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnless the bow wave of procurement can be successfully mitigated, competitors will realize that the American are weak today but will be strong tomorrow\u2014and it is better to act now than later,\u201d Eaglen writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the bipartisan two-year budget deal<\/a> yielded a substantial $700 billion defense top-line for 2018, the $716 top-line for 2019 just keeps pace with inflation. Budget Control Act caps, and their enforcement mechanism, sequestration, are due to return in 2020 unless lawmakers act again to ease them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readiness and modernization are likely to increase over the president\u2019s 2019 budget request if lawmakers tinker under the hood as they did in 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the House Armed Services Committee has already included three Littoral Combat Ships<\/a> in its draft of the 2019 defense policy bill<\/a>, versus the administration\u2019s request for one. The bill would block the Air Force from killing the JSTARS recap program<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\t