Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has highlighted the Pentagon’s focus to address land, sea, air, space and cyber challenges during his preview of a $582.7 billion defense budget plan for fiscal 2017, DoD News reported Tuesday.
Cheryl Pellerin writes the new Defense Department spending proposal will be part of President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget request that could be released next week.
“In this budget, we’re taking the long view,” Carter told his audience at a breakfast event held Tuesday at the Economic Club of Washington.
“Even as we fight today’s fights, we must also be prepared for the fights that might come 10, 20 or 30 years down the road.”
The Hill newspaper reported DoD plans to invest $7.5 billion to bolster the military campaign against the Islamic State militant group next fiscal year and use $1.8 billion of the amount to procure laser-guided rockets and GPS-guided bombs.
Carter noted the budget also contains initiatives to reform DoD’s institutional organization, eliminate wasteful spending in the weapons acquisition process and recruit skilled civilian and military personnel, according to the story by Kristina Wong.
Aaron Mehta of Defense News reports the department seeks $71.4 billion to fund technology research and development projects, $8.1 billion to build submarines and another $7 billion to bolster cybersecurity in fiscal 2017.
DoD also plans to defer retirement of the A-10 Warthog fleet until 2022 and quadruple allocation for the European Reassurance Initiative to about $3.4 billion in a move to increase the number of U.S. military operations, infrastructure and training in European partner countries.