Michael E. O’Hanlon
Introduction
How should President Donald Trump, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the helm of the Department of Defense, shape American defense strategy and budgets in his second term? The good news is that Trump himself, with Secretaries of Defense Jim Mattis and Mark Esper, did much to set the American armed forces on a sound and sensible post-war-on-terror path that President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin then largely sustained. The foundations of U.S. defense strategy, policy, and budgets are in reasonably good shape as the nation aspires to a period of what Ronald Reagan called “peace through strength”—a goal that Trump has wisely endorsed. But in light of the newfound coordination and cooperation within the “axis of autocracies”—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—as well as challenges to the U.S. defense industrial base revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic and then the Russian war against Ukraine, some changes will be needed. Specifically, I advocate five ways of strengthening American defenses in the years ahead.
The sum total of these changes would cost up to $60 billion a year, only partially offset by a total of $10 billion in annual savings from the reforms and efficiencies discussed below. In broad brush, I calculate that these changes together would increase the real-dollar U.S. national defense budget from its current level of just under $900 billion to roughly $950 billion next year—and likely to $1 trillion by decade’s end since many defense costs rise faster than inflation (expressed in constant 2025 dollars). These numbers include funds for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration as well as the $100 billion annual intelligence budget but do not account for the Veterans Affairs or Homeland Security budgets).
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