FY2018 Defense Budget

In case you were not watching closely, we still don’t have a defense budget for FY2018…which started four months ago. Right now, it is looking like we may have something agreed to by February 8, and according to some rumors, it will be an increase of $80 billion.

  1. The initial requested budget (which is different than what is actually spent) for FY2017 was $582 Billion.
  2. The president requested a $30 billion increase for FY2017.
  3. The president requested a $52 or $54 billion increase for FY2018 to $639 billion for FY2018 (source: Wikipedia, May 2017 DOD News article), or to $603 (source AP). I have never been able to sort out the difference here. I still don’t understand why there seems to be two different figures regularly batted about, nor do I understand how this claimed 10% increase adds up to a 10% increase. (read this for an answer: https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-expect-fy-2018-defense-budget).
  4. Congress is looking at a deal that will increase the budget by $80 billion, or I gather to some figure around $662 billion or $629 billion.
  5. Not sure how that budget increase is assigned or implemented as we are already 1/3rd the way through the fiscal year.
  6. I gather this increase is for the next two years.
  7. I gather there will not be a government shut-down on the 8th and that we may have a defense budget by then.

Anyhow, maybe we will know something more by the end of the week.

 

Sources:

1. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

2. AP Article: http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2018/The-era-of-trillion-dollar-budget-deficits-is-about-to-make-a-comeback-and-a-brewing-budget-deal-could-mean-their-return-comes-just-next-year/id-7d76e81cbea64e8fafe9d8a4576cfe6b

3. DOD article: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1190216/dod-releases-fiscal-year-2018-budget-proposal/

 

 

 

 

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

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