The 150 billion increase in defence spending promoted by the House & Senate Armed Services Committees as part of Congressional Republicans' “reconciliation package” of budget measures is making its way through Congress. All of this additional funding will be appropriated as an attachment to the FY 2025 defence budget but will remain available through the end of FY2029 and will thus serve as the base for the increase in funding for the military for FY2026 and beyond.

By macro-area, the funding split is: $34 billion for shipbuilding and maritime industrial base investments; $25 billion for the “Golden Dome for America” missile defence investments; $21 billion for ammunition procurement and boosts to industrial capacity; $14 billion to “expedite innovation”, particularly in regard to low cost, attritable, high volume of production systems; $13 billion for nuclear deterrence and related programs; 12 billion to enhance readiness; $11 billion in measures specific for the Indo-Pacific ranging from infrastructure to Taiwan assistance; $7 billion for air superiority projects; $5 billion for border security; $9 billion for improving Service personnel “quality of life” (pay, housing, healthcare etc...) with $400 million allocated to try and finally get the Pentagon, for the first time in years, through a full audit into expenditure and use of allocated money.

The Bill further breaks down these macro areas in long lists of priorities and will highlight some of the most notable.

$4.6 billion will go towards adding a 2nd VIRGINIA-class SSN in FY 2027. $5.4 billion will buy an additional couple of DDGs. $2.75 billion are being allocated to the procurement of T-AOE oilers, $2.1 will boost the procurement of SAN ANTONIO-class LPDs with $3.7 more going to the AMERICA-class LHAs. Separately, $695 million go in support of multi-year “bundled” procurement for amphibious ships.

$160 million will expedite advance procurement for the new Landing Ship Medium, with another $1.8 billion added for procurement of this new type of ship.

In addition, to plug the gap in availability of shipping for USMC and Army mobility, $600 million are allocated to buy or lease vessels for the National Defense Sealift, with another $159 million specifically for USMC ship leases.

The development of uncrewed surface vessels gets a big boost with $1.5 billion for Small USVs and $1.8 billion for Medium. Underwater vehicles also get $1.3 billion with another $188 million to further development of robotic maritime technologies.

$295 million go to boosting the procurement of new-build Landing Craft Utility (LCUs) and to begin their production at a second shipyard. Notably, a $80 million funding boost is allocated to accelerate ongoing efforts to mature the reloading at sea of Vertical Launch Systems for missiles.

Anti-missile defence investment lines are even more notable. Chief among them for potential strategic consequences is the inclusion of $5.6 billion dollars for the development of Space-Based and Boost Phase Interceptors. Deploying interceptors in space for shooting down enemy missiles in their boost phase is arguably the most effective way to counter enemy long-range weapons but has deep implications for the militarisation of space.

$2.4 billion go to “non kinetic missile defence effects” which are most likely mostly to do with the development of high-power lasers, potentially again also space based.

$7.2 billion go to space-based sensors, with a further $2 billion specifically allocated to developing satellites fitted with sensors for tracking moving targets in the air.

A further $300 million are added to classified “military space superiority” programs.

$1.9 billion goes to improved ground-based radars, with hundreds of millions allocated to space launch infrastructure (500), interservice hypersonic test bed (400), $250 million in research into Directed Energy. 800 million go the Next Generation Inter Continental Ballistic Missile defence and $2.2 billion go towards accelerating anti-hypersonic capability.

On the munitions front, funding goes both towards procuring more missiles and towards expending industrial capacity to produce more and faster. Navy and Air Force anti-ship missiles procurement (LRASM primarily), for example, is boosted to the tune of $400 million for procurement and $380 million in industrial base investment.

$490 million go into procuring Navy / Air Force anti-surface missiles, and $94 million into development of alternative missiles.

$688 million, plus another $250 in investments in the industrial base, go to multi-service long range cruise missiles.

$630 million go towards Navy surface to air missiles procurement, a boost in part also justified by expenditure of weapons in the Red Sea.

Substantial investment goes towards accelerating procurement of the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) for the Army and developing its more advanced increments, starting with the anti-ship capable Inc 2, with $175 million invested to expand production capacity.

$100 million are earmarked to add an anti-ship capable seeker on the Army’s “short range ballistic missile”, which is understood to be the GMLRS Extended Range rocket. The new ER rocket with its slightly widened body is known to have space for the addition of seekers beyond its GPS-inertial guidance.

Notably, the procurement of One-Way Strike drones gets a modest $50 million injection but a massive $1 billion investment in augmenting production capability.

Beyond investment in its missiles, however, the US Army gets essentially no love from the rest of the bill which has nothing to add to ground programmes.

The USAF, on the other hand, gets $3.15 billion to “increase production” of the F-15EX, $127.4 million to maintain the F-15E inventory, cancelling planned reductions, and $361 million to maintain in service the early-production F-22 RAPTOR Block 20s.

$678 million boost the program for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and $400 go to the freshly announced F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance.

$500 million also go to the US Navy’s own FA-XX, with $100 million going to the uncrewed tanker MQ-25 STINGRAY.

$300 and $230 million respectively go to USAF and US Navy classified air superiority-related projects, with another 100 million supporting Advanced Aerial Sensors development. $474 million are allocated to boost acquisition of the EA-37B COMPASS CALL electronic warfare aircraft, with $440 million added for C-130 procurement and $50 million to accelerate modernisation of the F-16’s electronic warfare suite.

The USAF would also benefit from a massive $4.5 billion injection of funding into the B-21 RAIDER program (included under the Nuclear Deterrence voice in the Bill).

The SENTINEL ICBN gets $1.5 billion in “risk reduction” activities, with the Life Extension 2 (LE2) for the Navy’s TRIDENT 2D5 gets $400 million. $2 billion are allocated to the development of the new submarine-launched, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that is wanted in service by FY2034.

Notably, $62 million are allocated to work to adapt “OHIO-class tubes to accept additional missiles”. The assumption is that this would see embarkation on the SSBNs of the hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike missile which is fielded by the US Army as DARK EAGLE, is being fitted to the DDG-1000 ZUMWALT class and is expected to be integrated inside the Large Diameter Tubes on VIRGINIA-class SSNs, in particular the ones fitted with the VIRGINIA Payload Module amidship with 4 such tubes.

The Large Diameter Tube is itself derived from the OHIO-class TRIDENT tubes and can fit, with an adequate payload module, 3 CPS hypersonic missiles.

CPS is a conventional warhead weapon with a range of over 3,000 miles. This is much, much shorter than the range of a TRIDENT but evidently it is felt that having this hypersonic, conventional strike capability would still represent an enhancement for deterrent capability.

In terms of innovation and scalable, low-cost systems, hundreds of millions go towards Artificial Intelligence development and cybersecurity, but notable investments also include 90 million towards “reusable hypersonic” platforms for Strike and Intelligence. $120 million also go towards Small Modular Nuclear Reactors development, with funding allocated also to quantum research.

$1 billion is earmarked for Low-Cost cruise missiles with another $500 million for the development of exportable low-cost cruise missiles to be shared with Allies.

In the Indo-Pacific, funding is allocated for exercises with Taiwan’s forces, with another $850 million specifically meant “for activities to protect United States interests and deter Chinese Communist Party aggression through provision of military support and assistance to the military, central government security forces, and central government security agencies of Taiwan”. $200 million also go towards the acceleration of the Guam Defense System program and no less than $4 billion go to “classified military space superiority programs” specific to the Indo-Pacific.

Follow us on Telegram, Facebook and X.