Defense Budget and Acquisition

The Pentagon’s 2022 budget request seeks, but does not yet achieve, the necessary alignment of missile defense and defeat investments to support long-term strategic competition.

The Air Force continues developing and procuring next-generation aircraft to meet the demands of great power conflict. Fielding new aircraft has slowed the increase in fleet age, but the Air Force is not buying enough new aircraft to sustain current force levels.

The Marine Corps continues a major restructuring to develop capabilities for great power conflict in the Pacific after two decades of conducting counterinsurgency operations ashore. The budget cuts units and personnel to pay for these new capabilities.

As Congress begins debating budget processes in DoD, it will need to assess the processes for utilizing approved budgets, or budget execution. This report provides a history and assessment of DoD budget execution processes and offers recommendations to improve them.

The Biden administration’s emerging fleet plan incorporates smaller ships and large numbers of unmanned systems, as proposed by many strategists, but high costs, production limitations, and congressional opposition may prevent full implementation.

The U.S. Army’s force structure remains steady even though its budget declined by $3.6 billion dollars. The Army does this by cutting modernization and readiness. In the long term, the Army’s force structure is at risk because of the strategic focus on China.

CSIS produces a series of papers on US military forces, including their composition, new initiatives, long-term trends, and challenges. In FY 2022, military forces are “peering into the abyss,” as constrained budgets and strategy changes push the services to cut forces.

Remotely crewed systems play an important role for ISR in contested spaces. This brief examines DoD's investment, comparing budget and strategy. The Air Force led early in remotely crewed systems, but has reduced its investment while spending on maritime systems increased.