Trump's DOD Budget

Trump has ordered the DOD leadership to come up with 8% budget cuts, for each of the next five years (about $68 billion per year) from the DOD budget while preserving 17 priorities. Those priorities are:

• Southwest Border Activities
• Combating Transnational Criminal Organizations in the Western Hemisphere
• Audit
• Nuclear Modernization (including NC3)
• Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs)
• Virginia-class Submarines
• Executable Surface Ships
• Homeland Missile Defense
• One-Way Attack/Autonomous Systems
• Counter-small UAS Initiatives
• Priority Critical Cybersecurity
• Munitions
• Core Readiness, including full DRT funding
• Munitions and Energetics Organic Industrial Bases
• Executable INDOPACOM MILCON
• Combatant Command support agency funding for INDOPACOM, NORTHCOM, SPACECOM, STRATCOM, CYBERCOM, and TRANSCOM
• Medical Private-Sector Care

It will be interesting to see what cuts will be proposed. To recap some cuts that I have suggested:

• The Selective Service System.
• Most tanks in the U.S. Army (transfer them to allies who want them like Ukraine and Taiwan).
• New destroyers (of existing designs) for the U.S. Navy.
• The U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay.
• Bomber aircraft in the Air National Guard.
• Canon artillery in the Army National Guard.
• The Space Force (which should be merged into the Air Force).
• The Air Force (which should be merged into the Army).
• Stealth fighters in the Air National Guard.
• The Next-Generation Intratheater Airlift (NGIA) program in the Air Force (it duplicates a more advanced Army Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program).
• The amphibious assault mission of the U.S. Marine Corps.
• The U.S. Navy's nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) program.
• Most U.S. military VIP transport aircraft.
• The Armored Multipurpose Vehicle (AMPV) procurement of 522 M1283 General Purpose Vehicles, 993 M1286 Mission Command Vehicles, and 386 M1287 Mortar Carrier Vehicles. This would leave the AMPV program with 790 M1284 Medical Evacuation Vehicles and 216 M1285 Medical Treatment Vehicles.
• The M10 Booker Mobile Protected Firepower program.
• Retire the B1-B bomber (or transfer it to the U.S. Navy as a patrol aircraft).
• The U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC), which is a high school pre-ROTC program.

Some other programs which could be cut include:

• The Constellation class frigate program (which is three years behind schedule and over budget, and remains vulnerable to various anti-surface combatant threats).
• The next generation destroyer R&D program.
• The next generation main battle tank R&D program.
• Phase out canon artillery in the Army in favor of canon artillery substitute missiles deployed from C-130 transportable, wheeled vehicles.
• Delay the "Next Generation Air Dominance" warplane.
• Phase out the remaining 13 Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers (a class which entered service in 1983) ahead of schedule (which is September 30, 2027).