Global Military Spending - NEWS ONLY

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/10/trump-reverses-the-defense-buildup-2020-cuts-analysis/?utm_campaign=Breaking%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=67027579&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--5dY4JxCDJ4wqFe3frwicWjX67ONIyWrgFa04Aolw6oK9tsfPSqJdmrxCaU4t5F0bbmwPDG-yZEm4SXQ--nQQ8H87hSw&_hsmi=67027579

he good news about President Trump’s $30 billion cutback to defense? The Pentagon still has enough money to execute a national security strategy. The bad news? It’s enough to execute Obama’s strategy. Trump’s plan would undercut the more expansive National Defense Strategy for “great power competition” that embattled Defense Secretary Jim Mattis rolled out just nine months ago.

[Read how Deputy Secretary Shanahan announced the cuts and how Joint Chiefs Chairman Dunford says the Pentagon will pick budget winners & losers]

That President Trump is serious about reversing his much-touted defense buildup caught everyone in Washington by surprise, including the Mattis Pentagon, which had almost completed a $733 billion plan for 2020. Trump’s $700 billion figure would be five percent below the plan for 2020 and a 2.3 percent reduction from 2019, reversing the planned growth.
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https://breakingdefense.com/2018/11/dod-looking-at-new-space-weapons-but-budgets-loom/?fbclid=IwAR0i_N4tEJDol3Ns6o0sD-sC5lGMR43UnJ71N_BwNI9rAuZ9qHVxDRbFHx4

WASHINGTON: Despite increasing uncertainty over President Trump’s surprise proposal to cut $33 billion from defense, the Pentagon’s R&D chief says he’s confident more cash will be pumped into laser weapons and new space capabilities.

It should take “no more than a few years” to get directed energy weapons such as lasers into the hands of troops in the field, said Michael Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said this morning at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. But those weapons will likely be Earth-bound in the near-term. While Griffin, a former NASA director, worked on space-based weapons for missile defense under Reagan’s “Star Wars” program and still advocates the idea, he emphasized it will take time to develop sufficiently powerful lasers.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/09/trump-pentagon-defense-spending-budget-1054068?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebb%2010.12.18&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief

President Donald Trump has told Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to submit a $750 billion budget proposal for fiscal 2020, in a reversal from his pledge to trim defense spending, two people familiar with the budget negotiations have told POLITICO.

The $750 billion figure emerged from a meeting Tuesday at the White House among Trump, Mattis and the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, both people said.

“It’s 750. Secretary Mattis secured that over lunch with the president,” an administration official said of the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a figure that has not yet been announced. Mattis was joined by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas). “That’s the top line.”

That would dwarf the $733 billion budget proposal Mattis and other top military leaders have been fighting to preserve and would represent a stunning about-face for a president who recently called the fiscal 2019 top line of $716 billion for defense spending “crazy.” In October, Trump said the defense figure for 2020 would be $700 billion, a roughly 5 percent cut in line with decreases planned for other agencies.
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https://breakingdefense.com/2018/12/adam-smith-doubts-750b-budget-praises-army-downplays-yemen-war-powers-bill/?fbclid=IwAR3bipRyiKcV5tWc0Fu6QEYy57maFocbIClMwdN0kWeZsvNqVK78DD_ZGTI

While many of his stances were unsurprising — he wants equal treatment for transgender troops, less spending on new nuclear ICBMs, and zero border-wall funding carved out of the defense budget — Smith also hit some nuanced notes we haven’t heard before.
 
www.c-span.org

Fiscal Year 2020 Defense Programs and Policy

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) held a discussion on fiscal year 2020 defense spending. Travis Sharp, a research fellow for CSBA, discussed the Pentagon's budget. He assessed whether the money approved by Congress for the defense budget is in line with national defense...
www.c-span.org www.c-span.org
 
www.realcleardefense.com

House Defense Cuts Are Clashing With the Reality of Rising Costs

Against the recommendation from our nation’s armed forces, some in Congress are once again trying to downscale the size and scope of the American military. Only this time, they are facing stiff
www.realcleardefense.com www.realcleardefense.com

The Next Generation Air Dominance effort—a program designed to maintain America’s airspace superiority—would face a $500 million cut. A reduction of that magnitude—half the program’s operational budget—would undoubtedly neuter the effort’s effectiveness. Indeed, the cut would “result in a three-year slip in advanced aircraft development timelines and the cancellation of critical new production technology programs.”
 
Iran sustains military spending in face of US sanctions (ft.com, registration may be required)

Iran has sustained its military spending in the face of debilitating US sanctions, a military adviser to the supreme leader has said in a rare interview, dismissing the Trump administration’s claims that its maximum pressure strategy has forced Tehran to slash its defence budgets.

Iranian officials acknowledge the impact sanctions have had on their economy, which has been plunged into a deep recession as US president Donald Trump has ramped up the pressure on the Islamic republic.

But Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan told the Financial Times that Tehran had not “made any cuts to the budgets of our military organisations”. “Militarily, today we are definitely in a better situation than three years ago when Mr Trump came to power, in all aspects — from staff, organisation to equipment. And we will be better in five years if Mr Trump is re-elected,” said Gen Dehghan, a former top commander in the elite Revolutionary Guards who is under US sanctions himself. “In the region, since the formation of Isis and the rise of insecurity, we have used all our capacity to organise, train and consult our allies.”

The republic’s official military spending has risen in Iranian rial terms since Mr Trump began imposing sanctions, according to government budgets. The rial has plummeted against the dollar, but Iran relies heavily on its indigenous arms industry. The full extent of Iran’s defence spending is opaque and support for regional proxies is not made public.

Trump administration officials, citing Iran’s budget, have claimed one of their key successes has been to force Tehran to reduce its military spending by almost 30 per cent, including cuts to the guards’ budgets, and to weaken the republic’s ability to support its proxies.

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