What does the budget include?
The defense budget submitted by Biden includes:
- An increase in the salaries of the troops by 5.2 percent.
- The largest ever recorded allocation for research and development, after the war in Ukraine spurred demand for more spending on munitions.
- A request to allocate $842 billion to the US Department of Defense, the Pentagon.
- $44 billion for defense-related programs at the FBI, Department of Energy and other agencies.
- Huge allocations in the 2024 budget for research and development for the Pentagon.
- Among those allocations is $145 billion to develop new weapons, such as hypersonic missiles, which launch into the upper atmosphere and can evade radar systems, even if they are advanced.
It is noteworthy that Russia used these missiles in Ukraine.
This will be the first budget in which to buy missiles and other munitions on contracts over several years, which is routine for planes and ships, as the Pentagon points to constant demand from major makers of ammunition, such as “Raytheon Technologies Corp”, “Lockheed Martin Corp” and “Erojet Rocket Dyne” holdings”.
The Ukraine war showed the US military that it needed to produce larger quantities of certain types of ammunition, and this explains the reason behind contracts over the years for weapons that are likely to also be used in a military conflict with China..
It is noteworthy that the total amount of the proposed 2024 budget is more than $28 billion, compared to $858 billion last year..
Congress responded
The US Congress has indicated, as it has so often, that it will increase defense spending at Biden’s behest. Congress has passed the annual defense budget for more than 60 years.
Congress and the US administration are anticipating a possible protracted war in Ukraine and possible future conflicts with Russia and China.
“Our greatest measure of success, and one we use here very often, is making sure that the leadership of the People’s Republic of China wakes up every day, thinks about the dangers of aggression, and concludes that it just won’t work,” US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said Monday. today“.
Motives for increasing the defense budget
Relations between the United States and China are increasingly strained on issues ranging from trade to espionage, as the two powers increasingly compete for influence in parts of the world far from their borders..
In this regard, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed, said when the budget figures were revealed, Thursday: “This higher request is a useful starting point,” according to Reuters.
#Biden #asks #Congress #largest #defense #budget #peacetime. #details