Pentagon unveils $686 billion military budget for 2019

resident Trump’s fiscal 2019 budget requested $686.1 billion in military funding, with a focus on great power competition with Russia and China, the Pentagon announced Monday morning.

The request includes $597.1 in base budget funding and $89 billion in cap-exempt wartime funds, part of the administration’s expected $716 billion national security request (which includes Department of Energy nuclear programs).

 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters Sunday the new two-year budget agreement would allow the military to be reshaped, “back to a position of primacy.”

 

The administration’s new national security strategy is prioritizing strategic competition with near-peers over counter-terrorism. With the respite budget instability, the Pentagon is rebuilding “to address the changing forms of warfare, and to bring the current capabilities up,” Mattis said.

 

Congress raised budget caps for defense by $165 billion through fiscal 2019 under a bipartisan budget agreement Congress approved last week. That sets a clear path, versus the spending fights and budget instability that have dominated Congress for the past few years.

 

Trump’s second budget plan also calls for the purchase of 10 new naval ships in fiscal 2019, and would enable the Air Force to grow from 55 combat squadrons to 58 over the next five years.

 

The budget plan also calls for more than $1 trillion in defense spending over the Obama administration’s 10-year plan, arguing that “failure to provide adequate funding to meet these defense objectives would embolden America’s enemies.”