The US Intelligence Community warns that Biden’s defense budget puts America in peril. As the consequences of the recently released President’s Budget Request (PBR) for Defense sink in, there is a realization that it does not address the threats facing America. Combine a shrinking defense budget with revelations from the recent Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, and America is losing ground against its determined enemies.
For the American taxpayer, President Biden’s requested $850 billion for defense spending captures the attention. But a closer look reveals the investment in US national security is actually declining. “The Defense FY2025 budget requests 15 fewer F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and six fewer F-15EX fighters,” Liberty Nation reported as an example of the Biden administration reducing warfighting capability. But that is just a reflection of the FY2025 Defense PBR.
The President’s Defense Budget Request Shows an Annual Decline
According to The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, “The larger picture presented by this budget is that the U.S. military is in a state of managed decline. U.S. defense spending falls to a projected 2.4% of the economy in 2034, down from an estimated 3.1% this year, which is half the nearly 6% spent during the 1980s when the U.S. was rearming to win the Cold War.” What make the decline in real defense spending extremely alarming is that it comes as America faces global threats unlike any seen since World War II. Retired US Army General Jack Keane, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, is by no means an alarmist; however, he told Fox News recently regarding the Biden administration’s reduction in defense spending, “There’s a one percent increase, but obviously inflation is greater than that. This is reckless, in my judgment and irresponsible.”
Keane went on to describe the threats the US faces against Biden’s inadequate defense spending request. “And the willingness of our adversaries Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea to work together is…It means the possibility that we could have conflict not just in one region, but in two regions because they are working together,” Keane explained. Why are America’s enemies putting aside any differences they might have with each other and focusing on defeating the US? Because they perceive weak national leadership.
America’s enemies see US senior civilian and military leadership that could not make timely decisions to avert a disastrous debacle of withdrawing American forces and civilians from Afghanistan. They see national security leadership that appears to have no answer to Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons, leadership in the White House that can’t explain to American taxpayers the Biden administration’s strategy for winning in Ukraine or even what “winning” looks like, and a Biden foreign policy team that sounded big in the first few weeks of Israel’s war on Hamas, but who now is backing away, going soft on supporting America’s closest ally in the Middle East.
America’s Obvious Failures in Leadership
None of these failures in leadership go unnoticed by our enemies. Furthermore, from a global threat perspective, the consequences are dire. In the most recent Director of National Intelligence report, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, the US faces a variety of threats that are more ominous than has been revealed in the decade. The 2024 threat assessment sets the stage for a very alarming view of what America faces, explaining:
“One need only look at the Gaza crisis – triggered by a highly capable non-state terrorist group in HAMAS, fueled in part by regionally ambitious Iran, and exacerbated by narratives encouraged by China and Russia to undermine the United States on the global stage – to see how a regional crisis can have widespread spillover effects and complicate international cooperation on other pressing issues.”
The US national security forces are not faced with just the most dangerous global threats, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, but other perils demand US attention and leadership. Referring to threats raised in the DNI’s annual evaluation, General Keane told Fox that “the return of transnational extremism again and the rise of a threat in Afghanistan; this is the most significant challenge we’ve faced in decades to include the fact we have people crossing our border unimpeded.”
The US Defense Department has a worldwide host of enemies and threats. Whether dealing with Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, China’s persistent aggression in the Taiwan Strait, or North Korea’s menacing and continuous missile testing, the US military must address Iran-supported proxy attacks on US military service members. American Middle East forces face daily Iran-supplied Houthi terrorist attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea. The war-like behavior from global enemies is ubiquitous, and the Biden administration seems unwilling to address these perils in any meaningful way. The president’s latest defense budget only increases the risk.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliation.
