Biden wants $886 billion defense budget with eyes on Ukraine and future wars (updated)

Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings

13/03/2023 16:12

(Adds quotes from senior US defense official, details on
budget)
    By Mike Stone
    WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's
biggest peacetime U.S. defense budget request of $886 billion
includes a 5.2% pay raise for troops and the largest allocation
on record for research and development, with Russia's war on
Ukraine spurring demand for more spending on munitions.
    Biden's request earmarks $842 billion for the Pentagon and
$44 billion for defense-related programs at the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, Department of Energy and other agencies. The
total amount of the 2024 budget proposal is $28 billion more
than last year's $858 billion.
    Congress has signaled, as it often does, it will increase
defense spending over Biden's request during the months-long
budget process that this request kicks off. Congress has passed
an annual defense budget for more than 60 years.
    Congress and the administration both have an eye on a
possibly prolonged war in Ukraine and potential future conflicts
with Russia and China.
    "Our greatest measure of success, and the one we use around
here most often, is to make sure the PRC (Peoples Republic of
China) leadership wakes up every day, considers the risks of
aggression, and concludes, 'today is not the day,'" Deputy U.S.
Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said on Monday.
    Relations between the United States and China have become
highly contentious over issues ranging from trade to espionage
as increasingly the two powers compete for influence in parts of
the world far from their own borders.
    "This top line request serves as a useful starting point,"
U.S. Senator Jack Reed, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, said when the budget figures were unveiled on
Thursday.
    This budget will be the first to procure missiles and other
munitions with multi-year contracts, something that is routine
for planes and ships, as the Pentagon signals enduring demand to
top munitions makers such as Raytheon Technologies Corp  RTX.N ,
Lockheed Martin Corp  LMT.N  and Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc
 AJRD.N .
    The Ukraine war has shown the U.S. military it needs to make
bigger lots of certain types of munitions, helping to explain
the multi-year contracts for weaponry that would potentially
also be used in a military conflict with China.
    
    ADVANCED MISSILES
    The budget boosts procurement of sophisticated missiles 
such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range
(JASSM-ER), and the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile
(AMRAAM). Those "are for the broader strategy - for a higher end
fight. They're not ground munitions," like those being used in
Ukraine, a senior U.S. defense official said.
    Thus far, funds to backfill the munitions sent to Ukraine,
including the JAVELIN and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System
(GMLRS), were handled by $35.7 billion in supplemental funds
enacted in 2022. The Pentagon aid to Ukraine in the budget is
the same as the prior year. If more funding is needed for
Ukraine, the senior defense official said, another supplemental
request could be drawn up. 
    The 2024 budget boasts a historically large research and
development budget for the Pentagon - $145 billion earmarked to
develop new weaponry like hypersonic missiles, which are fired
into the upper atmosphere and can evade even advanced radar
systems. Russia has used these missiles in Ukraine.
    Biden's budget request also speeds the Department of
Defense's pace for buying the stealthy F-35 fighter jet to 83.
The F-35 is the Pentagon's largest weapons program and will be
the lynchpin of U.S. air power in the near future.
    The 2023 budget request asked for 61 F-35 jets made by
Lockheed Martin and Congress increased that number to 77.
    Among the other top priorities for this budget are
modernizing the U.S. nuclear "triad" of ballistic missile
submarines, bombers and land-based missiles, shipbuilding and
developing capabilities in space.
    The budget would benefit the biggest U.S. defense
contractors including Lockheed, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman Corp
 NOC.N  and General Dynamics Corp  GD.N .
    Some of that investment is funded by asking to retire
equipment and older planes like A-10 Warthogs, which the U.S.
withdrawal from Afghanistan last year has made less essential
because they are vulnerable to more sophisticated enemies.

 (Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Grant
McCool)
 ((mike.stone1@thomsonreuters.com; https://twitter.com/MichaelStone;))