The White House surprised DoD with a last-minute $33 billion budget trim last week. But it’s far from certain that the cuts will outlive months of haggling between the Trump administration, the Pentagon and Congress.

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.

Trump campaigned on more money for the Pentagon, but his budget director appears to have won the fight for sweeping, across the board cuts to all federal agencies, including the Pentagon.

Given the two-year break from sequestration, the Pentagon is hurrying up to hire civilians to push the modernization of the force to head off advances by China and Russia, a new DoD strategy document says.

WASHINGTON: The federal government needs to spend more money on civilian agencies like the State Department, NASA, and the FAA, not just defense, the aerospace industry’s top lobbyist said today, but there’s no reasoning with a portion of Congress that wants cuts at any cost. “There’s a part of Congress that’s suspicious of everything,” said… Keep reading →

UPDATE: Source Says WH Will Fund LCS Add; CRS Naval Expert Comments  CAPITOL HILL: In a startling turnabout, the Trump Administration now “supports” adding a $541 million Littoral Combat Ship to yesterday’s 2018 budget request, Navy officials told Congress this afternoon. What, exactly, does that mean? The Navy doesn’t know. Minutes before Navy witnesses were to testify… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has laid out a measured and cautious spending plan that puts near-term readiness needs first in his first budget guidance memo. The memo, out this morning, largely defers major equipment modernization until 2019 and limits increases in the size of the force to “the maximum responsible rate” (emphasis ours). So,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: It’s an intriguing scenario. Senate Democrats join with GOP defense lawmakers to derail the nomination of Rep. Mick Mulvaney to be the powerful director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. It felt possible today as Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, pressed Mulvaney on whether he would… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Worried by Sen. John McCain’s efforts to slash the general officer corps, abolish Frank Kendall’s job and restrict the size of the National Security Council, the White House today threatened to veto the Senate defense policy bill. Accusing the Senate Armed Services Committee of trying “to micromanage DOD” by taking those and other measures, the… Keep reading →

The Navy’s aircraft carrier programs are once again at the vortex of intense scrutiny and debate, fueled by strategic ambiguity, questions about spending billions of dollars for a single ship during a period of painfully tight budgets, and uncertainty whether advanced technologies and systems will deliver the “goods.” As well, carrier critics point to supposed… Keep reading →