Former top U.S. defense officials sounded an alarm over falling Pentagon spending on Thursday, warning that budget cuts had undermined military preparedness for future conflicts and were jeopardizing the U.S. leadership position in the world.
The readiness of American troops for combat could be “worse than most people think,” according to a top budget analyst.
Budget guru Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is holding his latest briefing on the defense budget this morning, and we got a sneak peek at the report he’ll be unveiling. The takeaway: The Pentagon’s spending plan doesn’t match its long-term strategy.
The Department of Defense will be hundreds of billions of dollars short of what’s needed to enact the nation’s official defense strategy in coming years, a new report on the nation’s defense budget released Thursday predicts.
The Pentagon’s five-year strategic plan would cost as much as $300 billion more than the department has budgeted, according to a new analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
The Defense Department should have enough money to fund operations in Iraq through this fiscal year and into FY-15, even if Congress drags its feet passing the FY-15 defense appropriations act, analysts say.
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