US bid to ‘outcompete’ China yields Pentagon’s largest-ever defence budget
- Record US$842 billion meant to ensure Washington maintains ‘a ready, lethal, and combat-credible joint force with a laser focus’, Pentagon chief says
- Major investment areas to sustain US edge over China would include integrated air and missile defences and operational energy efficiency
The Pentagon made its largest-ever budget request on Monday, citing China as a “pacing challenge”.
Austin added that the new budget would make “major investments” to “sustain” America’s military advantage over China. He identified such areas as including “integrated air and missile defences and operational energy efficiency” as well as “our air dominance, our maritime dominance, and in munitions, including hypersonics”.
Beijing already possesses hypersonic missiles that travel five times faster than the speed of sound, but Washington is still developing the technology.
The Pentagon’s request included a record investment in new technologies known as research, development, test, and evaluation appropriations, totalling US$145 billion. Austin said the proposed budget would further allocate US$170 billion for procurement, the largest in US history.
“Our greatest measure of success and the one we use around here most often is to make sure the PRC leadership wakes up every day, considers the risks of aggression, and concludes today’s not the day,” said Hicks, referring to China by the initials of its official name.
“And for them to think that today and every day between now and 2027, now in 2035, now and 2049 and beyond.”
In the meantime, the US has sought to shore up its defence capabilities in its own forces as well as those of its allies in the Indo-Pacific.
She added that the budget represented the department’s largest Pacific deterrence initiative yet at US$9.1 billion.