The President’s War Budget

The President’s 2017 Defense Budget addresses new challenges but exposes us to risks of new engagements around the world. It would place one entire armed regiment permanently in Europe (confronting Russia); it would invest in bomb guidance technologies, swarming drones and in arsenal planes to launch conventional weapons; and it would create a $200 million “wartime spending account” for Africa.

The Africa initiative is in the Pentagon‘s Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). According to Mike McCord, Defense Undersecretary (Comptroller), the OCO is the “wartime spending account” of the Pentagon to provide “more robust resources for a wide swath across the (African) continent”.

General Paul Selva, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would counter threats including “Al Shabab in east Africa, Boko Haram in west Africa, and ISIL in Libya in north Africa”. Rob Work, Deputy Defense Secretary added “we approach this as a trans-regional problem, from eastern Africa through Afghanistan and potentially to southeast Asia”.

The OCO account also includes $1.2 billion for counterterrorism drones, $6.7 billion for cyber defense and $7.5 billion to fight ISIS (a 50% increase over the previous anti-ISIS funding). It provides less for Blackhawk helicopters and B-52s, but would deploy one entire armed regiment to Europe and the pre-position equipment for another regiment, if needed.

The total defense budget is $622.6 billion, 54% of all discretionary spending. It includes the Pentagon’s $523.9 billion “base budget”; $58.9 billion in the OCO war-making account; and $25 million in the Energy Department’s Nuclear Weapons Program.

The defense budget, according to Work, is driven by “the return of great power competition from Russia and China; North Korea’s development of Long Range Ballistic Missile capability; Iran’s emergence as a regional power (and its destabilizing effect on our allies including Israel); and our need to degrade terrorist networks”.

While the President proposes a budget, it is little more than a starting point. Congress formulates the actual budget and passes appropriation bills to spend it. While Republican candidates have largely criticized our military as being “gutted”, US military spending remains greater than that of the next ten national armies combined.

In addition to exposure to risks of new military engagements around the world, it leaves little discretionary funding to address the problems of Education, Medicare, Health, Veteran’s Benefits, Housing and Community Development, Small Business Administration, International Affairs, Energy and Environment, Science, Transportation, and Food and Agriculture issues closer to home.

James McCarville is a member of the Thomas Merton Center Board and Editorial Collective.

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