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Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, suggests, however, that more naval power could give Trump flexibility to operate in international waters, a move far less provocative (and one that requires much less infrastructure) than sending in U.S. ground forces.

If, for instance, the United States deployed Navy battleships to the Baltic Sea, Moscow would undoubtedly balk at the U.S. presence off its coast, but there is very little they could or would do about it, says Clark, who recently completed a study on the needs for a future naval feet. A deployment of ground troops to the region, meanwhile, would be seen as a provocation and a more permanent presence, he says. 

“Part of the discussion might be that the president may want a better negotiating position,” Clark says. “Having more military force at his disposal gives us more strength when bargaining with the Russians.”

The recent withdrawal of Vincent Viola from his nomination to be Secretary of the Army denies our nation the services of a great American at a time when the Army could really use his talents. One can never fully know the machinations of the internal vetting process that worked to undo Viola’s nomination, but his credentials are remarkable: West Point graduate, entrepreneur, and a generous donor to research efforts at West Point. It is difficult to imagine a system that denies someone this talented the opportunity to take another step to serve his country.

Trump will probably conduct foreign policy as an extension of “the art of the deal,” the former tycoon’s negotiating principle, says Bryan Clark, a defense expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “I think he could react more aggressively than past administrations would for the purpose of strengthening his negotiating position down the road,” Clark says. Clark says Trump’s choices could include shooting down North Korea’s next test missile, providing lethal arms to Ukraine’s government, deploying U.S. anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe and conducting more aggressive naval operations near islands China claims as its own in the South China Sea.

"What that might look like is putting an extra 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. troops into Syria in order to help accelerate operations around Raqqa in the next 6 to 9 months," said Hal Brands, a national security expert and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C.

Katherine Blakeley, a defense budget expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says a number of questions need to be addressed before the real details of the budget plan can be assessed. But one thing is clear, she said – that this plan is designed to be “politically untenable for the Democrats while trying to be as favorable as possible for the Republicans.”

Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said there's "a broad consensus in Congress that the Budget Control Act should be repealed and that the legislature and the executive should be able to think about the needs of our domestic priorities, think about the needs of our defense priorities and square those. So far they've failed to do that."