The Big Defense Budgets are not Coming

plan for it

Take a deep breath, relax, focus, and we’ll get through this together. We don’t have to like what is in front of us, but we do have to accept that it is there.

I try to be optimistic, but I’m also a realist. You have what you have, and you have to be an adult about what is placed in front of you.

I told you a decade and a half ago, The Terrible 20s were coming. You can only hold back the flood for so long. Math is hard and does not have feelings.

Don’t put too much stock in what is said. Look at what is being done.

Though most NATO allies have agreed to spend 5% of their GDP on defense, absent a major war, it’s unlikely to happen except in a very few places like perhaps Poland or one of the Baltic republics. They won’t do it because they promised the USA, they will do it because they believe it is in their interest to do so.

You see, in 2025, it is expected that the USA won’t even break 3% of GDP on defense. We will probably wind up just at 2.9%. If Uncle Sam isn’t going to break 3%, I don’t see our allies stretching for 5%. We would be lucky if they match us, and we’re drifting to 2.5%.

More and more people are starting to see this and speak about it openly. Even The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page is going Salamander.

The White House is touting its $1 trillion defense budget for 2026. Mr. Trump has also taken a deserved bow for getting NATO to agree to spend 5% of GDP on defense.

But the U.S. isn’t meeting that NATO target. It’s spending roughly half the 6% of GDP it devoted to defense at the height of Ronald Reagan’s military buildup. Even the $1 trillion is a game of three-card monte. The Administration counts in that total about $113 billion for defense in the GOP’s budget reconciliation bill. That money was supposed to turbocharge purchases of ships, aircraft and unmanned technology—above normal defense spending.

Yet when the budget bill is excluded, the Administration has proposed a cut after inflation for 2026. Absent more annual GOP bills, which may not be possible if Republicans lose Congress, defense spending could fall to about 2.65% of the economy by 2029 at the end of Mr. Trump’s term. That’s comparable to the European levels that Mr. Trump thinks are so pathetic.

Yes, yes, yes…I fully understand the budget bill trick of 2025…that is nice, but it what it is, a trick. It will work for a year—but it does not underscore a baseline. Will the budget battle in an election year match it?

The money trick of 2025 delays the hard decisions and the very adult conversation we need to have about how we allocate our budget to best prepare for the expected fight west of the International Date Line—a fight that will be a maritime and aerospace fight.

Take shipbuilding. The 2026 request asks for a mere three U.S. Navy ships, though the fleet is 60 short of its goal to deter China. Funding for 16 more ships is included in the GOP budget bill. But no contractor puts up long-term capital to expand production for a one-year plan.

Unstable demand from government helped produce the current shipbuilding crisis. Mr. Trump cares about restoring U.S. naval power, but what matters is the scoreboard. America needs to build 2.33 attack submarines a year to meet our own requirements and a commitment to sell hulls to the Australians. The current rate is 1.1.

This problem did not creep up overnight. It has been “appreciated” since I wrote the piece linked to above from April of 2010.

As you’ll see on the graph at the bottom of the post, we have accepted a bipartisan serial lie we have told to ourselves to make us feel better about “today”, and letting the hard reality of “tomorrow” be someone else’s problem.

Well, Shipmate, “tomorrow” is today.

The budget pours $3.5 billion into the new F-47 fighter jet, which is needed. Yet F-35 buys are cut to 47 from 74, and a new fighter for the U.S. Navy is on hold. The latter is especially absurd: U.S. aircraft carrier vulnerability in the Pacific is the most discussed military weakness of the decade, and longer-range aircraft on carriers would be a big counter.

Mr. Trump likes to invoke Reagan’s peace through strength worldview. But the Gipper made a sustained case about the threats the U.S. faced and the forces required to keep the peace. He explicitly rejected making “defense once again the scapegoat of the federal budget.”

The threats to U.S. security today are arguably greater than during the Cold War: A peer competitor in China, an imperial Russia, the risk of proliferating nuclear weapons, and new technology that empowers lesser powers and threatens the U.S. homeland.

Congress can fill some of the Trump defense potholes, but reinvigorating the U.S. military requires White House leadership.

It would be helpful to note that we are only six months into the Trump second term. He still does not have his full team in place. People are being put in place who are want to attack this challenge, but they are only part of the team and are still getting their footing. That “excuse” is running out of time, however. Once Labor Day gets here, it won’t work anymore.

What they need is money, attention, and top-cover. In a world in a frenetic crisis quickening, attention will be hard to get. Without that, you won’t have the money. With no attention or money, you won’t get top-cover because you won’t even be noticed.

No one said it would be simple or easy.

The President’s party in Congress has comically narrow majority in both chambers. What should be a bipartisan effort to secure our nation’s defense against a rising power is instead being held hostage to…what exactly? Institutional inertia, petty party politics, and programmatic entitlement?

On the Navy side, with Executive and Legislative Branch working together, you can fix shipbuilding. There are companies and entrepreneurs who are standing by to make this happen. All it takes is a consistent demand signal, accountable leadership, and political will.

As the below shows, our Culture of Untruth™ consistently results in over-promise and under-delivery. I mean, just look at it.

Are you satisfied with our people? Proud of our process? Want to emulate our leadership in building our fleet?

Which nation’s fleet is being built to fight and win at sea, and which nation’s fleet is inviting humiliation and crisis for the nation it serves?

h/t Steve.