The Pentagon’s efforts to improve U.S. force posture in the Pacific have yielded a flurry of major agreements, with allies motivated by China's behavior.
Top Pentagon leaders defended President Joe Biden’s flat defense budget request to lawmakers on Thursday and its “hard choices” to slash legacy weapons programs in favor of developing technologies, as a hedge against China.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s first budget request for the Department of Defense slashes procurement by $8 billion, whacking scores of legacy weapons and systems as a way to deliver a $5.5 billion boost for the development and testing of cutting-edge technologies that could deter China.
Eyeing China’s rise as a global military and economic power, lawmakers unveiled a compromise defense policy bill Thursday that targets China on multiple fronts, with $6.9 billion prescribed for a new Pacific Deterrence Initiative over two years.