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"These airfield upgrades are sensible and necessary investments for our reassurance and deterrence efforts in Europe," says Kate Blakeley, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The improvements "will have a real impact on the ability of U.S. and allied forces to operate at these bases, especially in contingency operations."

“It seems clear that despite the President’s call in his Philadelphia speech in September for a repeal of the Budget Control Act [which created the sequester] and a big buildup of the military he has not budgeted the resources to accomplish this,” says former ambassador Eric Edelman, a member of the National Defense Panel that recommended in 2014 a substantial buildup. “With these numbers he won’t be able to get a 350-ship Navy, a larger Army, or most of the other things that he promised the American people. There seems to be a disconnect between the rhetoric of ‘peace through strength’ and doing what is necessary from a budgetary perspective to build that strength.” He added, “Those of us who have been concerned about the declining state of the nation’s defenses will have to rely on the Congress to make sure that the gap between America’s commitments and its capabilities doesn’t grow greater on this President’s watch.”

However, Bryan Clark, a senior fellow who focuses on naval issues at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said the funding doesn’t do enough to help with modernization. It will “basically allow the Marines to operate at the readiness they have been over the last few years,” he told National Defense. “It addresses some of the readiness shortfalls … but what is doesn’t do is really help them with their modernization problems.”

“$18.5 billion just doesn’t go that far, particularly if you are going to take real action to address some of the force structure and readiness issues that we’ve been struggling with for the past several years,” Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said. “You can burn though $18.5 billion, which I don’t think we’re necessarily going to get, very rapidly.”

An unpopular budget plan from a politically weakened administration will give congressional advocates of higher military spending an opening to lead the debate, says Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. In this environment, she believes military hawks are in a strong position to gain an early edge in the messaging battle.

Kate Blakeley, a defense budget analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the OMB document shows an annual growth rate of 1.84 percent in defense spending over five years. "I don't think they are hiding a defense buildup in there anywhere," she said…Blakeley also questioned why OMB would assume the 2011 Budget Control Act would be kept in place, asserting it was evidence of a fiscally conservative view. "Then why keep the defense caps? The budget could have called for the defense half of the caps to be repealed instead of keeping the caps and paying for them with cuts to non-defense discretionary spending," she said. "This is not a defense buildup budget -- this is a budget written by deficit hawks."