Trump to increase the US military spending

Gulnaz Takauova

Links: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/01/27/draft-executive-order-shows-how-trump-wants-to-grow-the-u-s-military-significantly/?utm_term=.48ec62087b15

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/report-draft-executive-order-would-give-pentagon-short-term-funding-boost

http://www.republicanviews.org/republican-views-on-military-spending/

Fordham, Benjamin. 2001. "Military Interests and Civilian Politics: The influence of the civil-military "Gap" on peacetime military policy." In Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security, by Richard H.Kohn Peter D.Feaver. MIT press.

On Friday, January 27, President Donald Trump, have signed an executive draft order what he called “The great rebuilding of the Armed Forces” aiming to sufficiently increase the military army size it’s and funding.

The executive draft charged the Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis to conduct what is called a “Readiness Review”.  For 30 days the Defense Secretary is required to re-examine the US national strategy and provide a plan to bolster the military. This includes the plan for the future training of soldiers, modernization of weaponry, equipment and infrastructure. In addition, the order was mandating the increased military funding and increased amount of troops in the Army. According to the Washington Post, these are the necessary steps to prepare the United States for the war against the ISIS.

According to the various speeches during his presidential campaign, Trump aims to increase the number of soldiers to 540,000, Navy fleet to 350 ships, Air Force fighters to 1,200 and also the number of Marine Corps infantry battalions to 36. In contrast, during the Barack Obama’s leadership, the Army shrunk to the smallest number since before the World War II.  At the end of November 2013 the Army number reached 470,465 soldiers and Obama wanted to continue this trend until the Army would reach 450,000 soldiers in 2018.

However, this is not the first case when the US military spending had been fluctuating under the leadership of different Presidents. The military spending is one aspect of the US budget that has been changing throughout all of its history. It rose under Presidents Raegan and Bush but has been substantially cut under Presidents Clinton and Obama. And now the military spending again is being raised by the President Donald Trump. What can be accounted for these changes?

According to the Feaver and Kohn, authors of the book “Soldiers and the State”, the partisanship and ideology play a crucial role in shaping the preferences on military spending. The authors argue that since 1960s Republicans became highly supportive of military spending   while the Democrats’ opinion towards the defense spending generally tend to unite into opposition. This trend is seen nowadays as under the Democrat President Barack Obama the US defense spending was substantially cut and under Republican President Donald Trump it was dramatically increased.