The Pentagon unveiled a Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 budget request of $582.7 billion, accompanied as usual by the Five Year Defense Plan (FYDP) showing proposed spending through FY2021. According to a chart released this week by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), U.S. defense spending is nearly four times greater than that of China, and nearly six times greater than that of Russia.
As in previous years, the FY2017 budget is subject to amendment by the U.S. Congress, but major changes are less likely following last year’s bipartisan agreement to amend, for Fiscal Years 2016-17, previous legislation on balancing the U.S. federal budget. “We applaud Congress being able to provide us with two years of stability,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work. But he noted that the FYDP includes $100 billion of funding from FY 2018-2021 “that we don’t know for certain we’re going to get.”
The request includes relatively small cuts to some aircraft procurements compared with previous FYDPs, including C-130Js, UH-60Ms and V-22s. The Pentagon now plans to procure 45 fewer F-35s over the five-year period. But the total is still 404, and that total might become immune to cuts in future years, if the block buy that F-35 program officials have been promoting can be agreed. In FY 2017 a new block buy of the Boeing AH-64E Apache begins, providing the certainty of 275 remanufactured attack helicopters over five years. FY 2017 marks the fifth and final year of a multiyear procurement (MYP) of new and remanufactured CH-47F Chinooks, for 22 aircraft.
There was more good news for Boeing in the Navy’s budget, which added 14 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets in FY 2018 to keep the production line open, irrespective of whether new export orders are received. The Navy will get six more E-2D Hawkeyes in FY 2017—the fourth year of another MYP—and 11 P-8A Poseidons, some with the previously classified Raytheon APS-149 Littoral Surveillance Radar Systems (LSRS). A total of 75 KC-46 tankers are funded for the Air Force over the FYDP, 15 of them in FY 2017. The Marines will get 24 new-build AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters and its first two CH-53K heavy-lift helicopters, of a total 194 planned. Another 24 MQ-9 Reaper UAVs are funded from the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account.
Funding for UAV upgrades in FY 2017 includes continuation of a $3.2 billion program to improve the Block 30 version of the Global Hawk so that it can replace the U-2 in FYs 2019-20; and a Sigint sensor for the Army’s MQ-1C Gray Eagles. Among other upgrade funding in FY 2017 is $704 million to integrate and field new weapons on the F-22 raptor, including AIM-120D, AIM-9X and the small-diameter bomb; and $768 million for the F-15, including AESA radars and the Paws electronic warfare system.
In the RDT&E accounts, more than $1.3 billion is allocated in FY 2017 for the start of engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) of the Long-Range Strike-B (LRS-B) aircraft. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) ruling on Boeing’s challenge to Northrop Grumman’s selection for the LRS-B is imminent. There is $319 million for Sikorsky to perform EMD on the Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH-previously HH-60 recapitalization). Development of the Lockheed Martin Long-Range Anti-Surface Warfare Missile (LRASM) for the F/A-18 and the B-1 continues in FY 2017, and the first 30 of these anti-ship missiles are procured for test.
In funding for operations, there was confirmation of the A-10’s retention until 2022, when the Air Force will have fielded enough F-35 squadrons to replace it. The Navy is permanently dropping its 10th Carrier Air Wing, although all of its 11 aircraft carriers are funded over the FYDP. The overall number of combat air patrols by the MQ-1/9 UAV series will be boosted to 90 by the end of the FYDP: 60 mounted by the Air Force (which is retiring its remaining MQ-1 Predators in favor of an all-MQ-9 Reaper force); 16 by the Army (which is acquiring a fleet of MQ-1C Gray Eagles); four by Special Operations Command (all MQ-9s); and 10 in a new "government-owned, contractor-operated" arrangement.
