IN-DEPTH: Defense Budget Focuses on Growing China Threat
The proposed United States’ $886.3 billion Fiscal Year 2024 defense budget features a $9.1 billion program designed to beef up allied operational efficiencies and fortify installations to counter aggression in the Western Pacific by China’s growing military.
Both Senate and House armed services committees last week adopted the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI) within their Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Acts (FY24 NDAA), or proposed annual defense budgets, which are set to be debated through summer and passed this fall. The $9.5 billion is a 40-percent increase from this year’s PDI allocation.
Both chambers’ draft NDAAs also funnel funding and resources to Taiwan as it prepares a “porcupine defense” to fend off an invasion that the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is publicly and brazenly preparing to launch no later than 2027….