Why Trump’s budget boost won’t actually strengthen US defences

Hugh White says the US president’s proposal for a ‘historic’ raise in military spending sounds dramatic but is frankly underwhelming – both in its amount and intended use

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Published: 9:30am, 19 Mar 2017Updated: 5:37pm, 19 Mar 2017

The idea that spending more money on things like building ships will help restore US strategic pre-eminence reflects deep misunderstanding of the nature of the challenges that the American leadership faces in Asia and elsewhere. Illustration: Craig Stephens

To America’s anxious allies, President Donald Trump’s plans for a big boost to the US defence budget might appear to be welcome news. It seems to offer reassurance that despite the strong strand of “America first” isolationism in his campaign, the new president is committed to upholding America’s strategic commitments, and preserving its role as the guarantor of peace and stability in key regions like Europe and East Asia.

But it would be a mistake to see the president’s defence budget announcement this way. There is much less to it than meets the eye, and little that offers any serious hope that America under Donald Trump will respond effectively to the strategic challenges that it has inherited from Barack Obama.

Let’s start with the numbers. As always with defence budgets, there is a much scope for confusion, but however you cut it, Trump’s boast of a historic 10 per cent rise in defence spending looks overblown. The White House itself has reportedly acknowledged that the spending proposed for the next fiscal year is only 3 per cent above this year’s projection, and inflation will eat up most of that. The amount of extra money actually flowing into building and maintaining combat capabilities is thus going to be very limited at best.

What difference any extra money makes to America’s ability to meet its challenges depends of course on how it is spent. So far, there are few details, but Trump’s focus is plainly on big-ticket, high-profile major equipment. His centrepiece is a plan to expand the US Navy to 350 ships, from the current 274. There are several problems with this approach.

US Navy sailors take part in operations on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson this month, in the waters east of the Korean peninsula. The centrepiece of Trump’s budget increase is a plan to expand the US Navy to 350 ships, from the current 274. Photo: AFP / US Navy

For one thing, this may not address the most urgent constraints on US military power. Like many modern militaries, US forces struggle to find the funds to maintain and operate the capabilities they already have. Filling these funding gaps is often the most effective way to enhance combat power, while spending the money buying more expensive ships and aircraft, which then also need to be maintained, only exacerbates the problem.