Biden's defence budget seeks greater Chinese deterrence

WASHINGTON • US President Joe Biden's US$715 billion (S$947 billion) Department of Defence budget will shift funding from old systems to help modernise the nuclear arsenal to deter China, while also developing future warfare capabilities, people familiar with the budget said.

The defence spending request, which was yesterday set to be sent to Congress, is expected to contain investments in troop readiness, space, the Pacific Deterrence Initiative aimed at countering China's military build-up in the region, and nuclear weapons technology, the sources said.

The budget request would buy ships and jets and pay for maintenance and salaries, but an additional US$38 billion is earmarked for defence-related programmes at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies, bringing the national security budget to US$753 billion, a 1.7 per cent increase over the 2021 figure.

The amount would, however, be a decrease of about 0.4 per cent in real terms adjusted for inflation.

There will also be money to further develop and test hypersonic weapons and other "next generation" weapons systems as the military aims to build capabilities to counter Russia and China.

President's budget requests are a starting point for negotiations with Congress, which decides how funds are spent.

The Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which focuses on the Indo-Pacific, aims to boost American preparedness in the region through funding radars, satellites and missile systems.

To pay for this, people familiar with the shift said, the Pentagon is seeking to divest some of its older equipment with higher maintenance costs, including littoral combat ships, A-10 aircraft that provide close air support to ground troops, as well as some KC-10 and KC-135 planes in the mid-air refuelling fleets.

Tensions with an increasingly assertive China are on the minds of US military planners.

The Biden administration will request 85 stealthy F-35 fighter jets made by Lockheed Martin, the people said. The 2021 and 2020 presidential budgets requested 79 and 78 respectively.

The US Navy's shipbuilding plan, published in the final months of the Trump administration, had 12 new surface combatant ships for the 2022 budget. But the Biden request has only eight.

Despite shaving numbers from older systems, the Biden administration will continue to invest in modernising the US nuclear triad, an expensive undertaking that will cost on average over US$60 billion a year over this decade and more than a trillion dollars in all, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Funding will go towards improving nuclear command and control as well as delivery platforms like the Columbia Class nuclear submarine and the certification to carry nuclear bombs aboard the stealthy F-35 jet fighters.

The Pentagon's US$715 billion budget proposal is sufficient to meet threats from a rising China to climate change to future pandemics, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said on Thursday.

The budget "adequately allows us to prepare for the next fight", Mr Austin said. It will include "probably the largest-ever investment" in research and development while paring outmoded weapons systems, he added.

But committee Republicans said the modest funding increase could make competing with China more challenging in areas such as the South China Sea or a potential conflict over Taiwan.

"We're beginning to lose our critical competitive edge in many domains," Representative Hal Rogers of Kentucky said.

In written testimony, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said China is the US' top geostrategic security challenge, but that war with the Asian nation is "not inevitable".

"We need to keep our relationship at competition, not conflict," Gen Milley said.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG