Despite President Trump’s repeated promises to rapidly rebuild the U.S. military over his term in office, the Pentagon currently has no long-term plan to fund the build-up past the next budget year, which begins in October.
Pentagon officials explained they had to scramble just to get the budget together for the coming year, and have had no time to plan for the “out years.”
In most years, the Defense Department submits a five-year plan, called the Future Years Defense Program or FYDP, to Congress, along with the next year’s budget.
The long-term plan, which doesn’t include war costs, helps the individual military services make decisions about budget priorities.
But this year, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who is still lacking dozens of high-level appointees including a Navy and Air Force secretary, had no resources to plan that far ahead.
“The secretary has not spent any time at all looking at anything beyond FY ’18 to date,” said John Roth, acting Pentagon comptroller at a Tuesday briefing.
The reason, he said, is that the fledgling Trump administration is still drawing up its new defense strategy that will inform future spending decisions.
“So what you have, and what OMB has provided for the Defense Department, is flat topline beyond FY ’18. That is not the top line we will be seeking,” Roth said.
“That top line is not informed by strategy, and it’s not informed by policy.”
Roth said the numbers currently in the five-year plans are just placeholders, awaiting an analysis that will begin in the fall.
“You will not see a growth in force structure. You will not see a growth in shipbuilding, you will not see a robust modernization program.”
Thomas Spoehr, a defense analyst with the Heritage Foundation, said the lack of future year projections is not unusual for a transition year budget, but he expressed disappointment the budget doesn’t come close to fulfilling the president’s pledge to restore America’s combat readiness.
“The requested budget for 2018, and the projected discretionary caps as they appear for 2019 and beyond, do not represent a rebuilding of the U.S. military,” Spoehr said.
“They will stop the erosion and deterioration, but will not put the military on a path to a 355-ship Navy, to completing the fielding of the F-35 fighter in a reasonable time period, field a new generation of combat vehicles for the Army, or grow the services to the minimum levels required — all things that are desperately needed today.”
