The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has sent the Trump administration’s FY2026 “Skinny Budget” to Congress, and it’s a whopper. Overall, it cuts billions of dollars of spending, but for the first time, the proposed defense budget tops US$1 trillion.
It far exceeds armaments spending anywhere in the world. And it is supposed to protect US territory and to assure American military dominance globally. But does it?
Note that a “Skinny Budget” is just that – an outline that lacks detail about where the money will go. Details are left for the “real” budget submission that will be sent to Congress later this year.
Note, too, that while the proposed expenditures are for 2026, they create obligations that will last for years and in some cases decades. New programs, except under unusual circumstances, will be paid for in future budgets for their projected lifespan.
Chasing Gadgets
The new budget has big money for the B-21 “Raider,” a $700 million unarmed platform that is supposed to replace the B-2 “Spirit” bomber, which costs $2 billion per unit. But don’t believe the B-21 price tag because it will be far more, probably coming close to the B-2’s outlay.
Why not keep the B-2 for the long term and drop the B-21? Because common sense and cost saving are apparently not part of the US Air Force’s arsenal.
The US Army, after what it has seen in Ukraine, is making changes. One good sign is getting rid of the new M-10 Light Tank, which was too heavy to cross many European bridges and to be airlifted into conflict areas. Nor was it survivable.
The delivered current cost is $15 million per unit. Apparently, 80 have been sent to the Army, and the sunk cost in the program is reportedly $7.2 billion – money down the drain.
The Army is also divesting itself of other redundant or ineffective systems. The Skinny Budget, however, does not explain what will happen to the Abrams M-1 tank. Projected to be a game-changer in Ukraine, it failed to be that after being sent without active protection systems on board. Or even the extra armor that was welded onto some Abrams deployed in Europe.
The Russians enjoyed bagging the Abrams and showing off captured ones in a Moscow park.
The Army has cancelled a planned Abrams tank upgrade but says it is pursuing a “new” tank, which will mostly be an old tank with new paint and some added gadgets.
For example, it wants to replace Israel’s highly regarded Trophy active protection system (which is now an add-on for a hundred or so Abrams tanks) with an undocumented and unproven “new” integrated one.
The Trophy could be integrated just with software, but the Army spendthrifts want a new active defense system and a new tank. This will likely cost tens of billions of dollars, render the existing tank fleet obsolete and unsupported, and may not improve the tank’s survivability in any meaningful way.
The Army would be better off spending its money on drone protection, but that is not as sexy as a new tank. Meanwhile, the existing inventory of 5,000 Abrams tanks (3,600 in storage) will not be maintained and will never see a battlefield.
Golden Dome
There is some good news. The Skinny Budget goes all in on supporting President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome strategic defense system. The so-far notional plan recognizes that the US needs continental air defenses against long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The Russians have demonstrated with their Oreshnik hypersonic missile against a target in Ukraine that their longer-range hypersonic strategic systems, particularly Avangard, are an unprecedented threat. The Golden Dome is at least a partial solution to the threat.
Given current technology and the problem of locating hypersonic missiles and glide vehicles (e.g. Avangard), “traditional” air defenses won’t work. Once a hypersonic threat is at top speed, it generates a type of plasma shield that makes radar detection and tracking almost impossible.
Even systems that can intercept in space, such as the US Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) or the Israeli Arrow 3, are limited. The US is said to be redesigning the interceptor for the GBI, but that is years away.
Today, the US has only 44 GBI interceptors, while the number of working interceptors is unclear. Of these, 40 are in Greely, Alaska, and four are at Vandenberg AF Base in California, ostensibly to protect against North Korean long-range missiles.
The rest of the US is not protected in any legitimate manner. The US does have AEGIS cruisers and destroyers (why the Navy is prematurely dumping Ticonderoga-class cruisers and reducing sea-based air defenses is inexplicable) and has installed AEGIS onshore in Poland and Romania, as well as THAAD in the Middle East and South Korea. These, at best, are air defense stopgaps.
Golden Dome almost certainly has to be a space-based system made up of armed satellites that can take down Russian or Chinese hypersonic missiles in the boost phase, when they are not yet hypersonic and at least technically vulnerable.
Historical note: This was the Reagan-era plan for a system known as Brilliant Pebbles. The armed satellites were proposed by nuclear scientist Edward Teller and astrophysicist Lowell Wood in 1983. More than a thousand of these satellites were called for at the time.
Present note: The only organization with the ability to put masses of satellites in orbit is Elon Musk’s SpaceX. SpaceX has pioneered reusable rocket boosters, and its Starlink system has already put more than 7,000 satellites in orbit.
The plan is to increase Starlink to 42,000 satellites in the next decade. Neither Russia nor China nor any other US company can match SpaceX’s launch capabilities.
Drone threats
Golden Dome is an ambitious, if undefined, new program. But it does not include defense against other territorial threats, especially drone attacks that can be supported by non-state actors and hostile countries.
As the Ukraine war demonstrates, the Russians and Ukrainians can attack each other with long-range drones. Ukraine hit Moscow, including Putin’s Kremlin office, with drones that flew 1,688 kilometers to their target. Any US enemy can do the same, either from land (including drones launched from inside the US) or from the sea.
The US has no comprehensive air defense system and is badly exposed to an enemy attack, including against sensitive government installations, nuclear power plants, reservoirs and dams, and the population itself. Imagine, for instance, a drone crashing into the Super Bowl.
As it stands, the Skinny Budget is a mixed bag that needs a lot of work. This time around, the problem is not just money but where it is spent and how well it will protect the United States, its people and its assets.
Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.
It might or might not save us, but will certainly drive us to bankruptcy.
Everything in the US arsenal is hyped up. 1 trillion is spent a year feeding that hype.none of the systems have done well in Ukraine or India when up against cheap Chinese tech. None of these systems can even exist without Chinese components and critical minerals. Unsustainable without Chinese supply chains. Printing more money isn’t going to get you effective weapons.
Will a $1 trillion defense budget better protect America? Being nicer towards others would be cheaper and more effective.
War will devolve into AI and automated drones, of which the Ukr’s are brilliant.
But let’s not forget the fate of planet Skaro, and the Thals and Kaleds.
Who has the best and most drones? Not the toilet hand Capons.
The US Army fields around 450,000 troops, 1/4 of that total Reserve troops. It’s hard to get a good answer but it appears that 20% at most of those troops are combat, the rest are support. I can’t think of any ground war we could win with 90,000 soldiers.
I’d bet the Sepos and NATO would roll up the Russians in a week.
In fact it could be done and dusted with only 3 nations, all paid for.
Poles crush the Russians like the crazy guys they are. Czechs open a distillery and pivovar in Moskau and sell alcohol for the exorbitant prices which the Norwegians pay.
Chinese? Honestly, they can only fight unarmed students.
And the toilet hand Capons got shot out of the sky by Chinese J-10C’s PL-15s. Come on, send me some more Capon fodders if you dare!
$1 trillion dollars later, and men in sandals with no planes are still winning. Does anybody in the evil empire ask why America has to constantly “defend” itself in other people’s countries? No they are paid not to ask such pesky questions.
Hardly winning, I bet the 4by2’s have a cunning plan, just like the lithium zion batteries in Lebo that took out either the head or the nuts.
Iran. Totally penetrated by Mossad.
None, without Chinese rare earth.
Despite a $1Trillion budget, US Military is GROSSLY OBSOLETE, China & Russia can each alone exterminate the US in less than 20 minutes with DF51 or Sarmat , UNDETECTED.
While the Tiddly WInks can only take on unarmed students in Tianamen Sq
And wipe the toilet hand baka Capons with their own feces.
The United States doesn’t bother much with defensive measures because it is always the aggressor. A missile defense shield would be an admission of defeat.
An over-reliance on F35 “stealth” screams offensive intent. A desperate attempt to weaponize space screams offensive intent. Over 800 military outposts all over the globe screams offensive intent. Supporting the Zionist settler state in its ethnic cleansing ambitions no matter what, screams offensive intent. Being OK with genociding Ukraine’s male population screams offensive intent. Weaponizing the US dollar, financial system, IMF and every single organ these halfwits touch, screams offensive intent. To summarize: an admission of defeat.
The logic behind the ABM treaty, which the US withdrew from during the Bush II administration, was that these missiles were de facto an element in a first strike strategy.