The Trump administration characterized its FY 2020 defense budget request as a “masterpiece.” The CSIS Defense Budget Analysis program provides its assessment of the budget, its implications for future defense spending, and FY 2020 appropriations.
Military forces consist not just of the services, but also special operations forces, civilians, contractors, and non-DOD agencies. In his final white paper in a series on U.S. forces, CSIS’s Mark Cancian analyzes recent changes to these other national security elements.
The Army struggles to grow its force structure as it takes steps towards modernization for great power conflict. In the fourth white paper in his series on U.S. forces, CSIS’s Mark Cancian analyzes the Army’s plans and challenges for growth and modernization.
The U.S. Navy is gearing up for great power conflict even as it struggles to meet day-to-day operational demands. In the second white paper in his series on the U.S. forces, CSIS’s Mark Cancian analyzes the Navy’s force structure, proposed changes, and long-term challenges.
This first white paper in Mark Cancian’s military forces series analyzes the strategy and budget context for building forces in FY 2020, criticisms of the strategy, budget and resulting force plans, and risks for sustaining force levels in the future.
The overall theme of this year’s military forces report is the struggle to align forces and strategy, unrelenting operational demands, and legacy programs whose smooth operations and strong constituencies inhibit rapid change.
On August 2, 2019, President Trump signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, raising the budget caps for FY 2020 and FY 2021 and suspending the debt ceiling. Seamus Daniels and Todd Harrison assess the impact of the budget deal on defense in their latest analysis.
President Trump signed off on a two-year budget deal that does many good things: it keeps that the government running, raises the debt ceiling, funds defense and domestic programs at levels their proponents can accept and does all this two months before the fiscal year begins. The downside is that the deal adds $1.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, a bill the current generation has no intention of paying and which it happily sends to its children and grandchildren.
Esper will likely conduct a “night court” process for DoD, which means that every program will need to be justified in terms of the national defense strategy’s reorientation towards great power conflict.
The clock is ticking, and the Senate, where floor time is always at a premium, has only 35 days in session after July 4th before fiscal 2020 begins (August is mostly recess, unless the Senate decides to enjoy the swelter of a Washington summer).